The Mark and the Geas
by aiulbones
Summary: On his Blessing Ceremony, Prince Sam is cursed by a dark Wizard. He, his brother Dean, and the youngest of the Court Wizards, Castiel are inseparable, but when Lucifer resurfaces, Sam, his mother, and the Wizards go on the run to break the curse before Lucifer finds them. Dean is left behind and realizes what his best friend means to him. (Loosely based on Sleeping Beauty)
1. Prologue

_Author's Notes: _I wrote this as a mini-bang for the DCBB community. It was beta'd by Zoe and Elmie, who also was my artist (she's amazing like that). Her art post is here.

And if you're wondering what happened to my other fic, What Once Was Lost, I have not abandoned it. I will be finishing it, hopefully sometime soon!

* * *

Prologue

Age 6 Months

I shall tell you a story that begins some three hundred years after the Geas stone was wrought. Like many stories, this one stemmed from a boy on the brink of becoming a man. From birth, he knew he was a very special boy, and not only because his mother died bringing him into this world. This boy, you see, was the son of the High Wizard, and as you all know, the Geas took the magic from every mage but the High Wizard and his children. The boy, then, was one of the few mages to keep his powers, and he was quite powerful. Had he wanted, he could have succeeded his father and become High Wizard in his stead, but this boy had a different sort of ambition.

He grew up on a mountain surrounded by lands still scarred by the Mage Wars. To the east bubbled a poisoned spring that turned all living things into twisted beings covered in thorns and boils. To the west sat a stone that shattered into a thousand knives at sundown, only to reappear whole and unmarred at dawn. To the north lay empty fields, infertile since the battles that raged there three centuries prior. When Argeus the Just crafted the Geas, he thought only of sealing away magic and ending the wars. He didn't consider these lingering curses. Afterwards, only a handful of Wizards were left with their power intact, barely enough to handle the greater needs of the kingdom. These smaller wounds were ignored, and gradually, the knowledge to heal them was lost.

The boy saw great injustice in this arrangement. Why should anyone still suffer from the actions of their ancestors? How many years was payment enough? While his father's loyalty lay with the king, he made his allegiance to magic, but it is a dangerous thing to attach oneself to something so vast and undefined.

This is not, however, entirely his story. No, the history that I relay to you today is more suitable for the occasion. Today I give to you an account of good and evil, love and perseverance. This story starts not with one boy, but two.

I shall begin with their first meeting, which was told to me by our dearest Dowager Queen.

This story began when Michael Argenet was both High Wizard and Royal Wizard. He was no longer a young man, but he was still one of the greatest mages this court had ever seen. At the time, he resided at Mage Peak with his four children: Raphael, Anna, Gabriel, and Castiel. While Michael was frequently seen at court, his troupe of children would only come down from the mountains, through the forests, and into the streets of King's Point on special occasions.

One such occasion was the Blessing Ceremony of the King's first-born son. Clad in their dark robes, the group of five Wizards floated down the Main Way and through the gates of the castle. The Great Hall had been decorated with hundreds of colorful candles and tapestries and streamers, so the Wizards looked like little patches of night sky amidst the revelry. Michael held his youngest child in his arms and his other three trailed behind him like ducklings. A hush fell over the guests as they they spotted the Wizards making their way down the center aisle.

The High Wizard and his family knelt before the dais, dark blue robes pooling around them like liquid until the King bade them arise and come forth to perform their duty.

The Prince was asleep in his gilded cradle set between the two thrones, his mother and father seated on either side. Michael began the ceremony with a recitation memorized from the Geas itself, words of sorrow, guilt, and, ultimately, of penance. One by one, the Wizards came forth to grant their Blessing and fulfill their duty. From Michael, the prince received the Mark of Health, from Raphael, the Mark of Courage, and from Anna, the Mark of Strength. Gabriel, who was a small, round child with rosy cheeks and chubby legs, scampered forward and shoved his soft hands against the sleeping Prince. He did not give a Blessing, but an Oath, swearing himself into debt in his soft lisp and careful words. At five years of age, he did not have the power or the control to give the Prince much more than pink hair or a slight rash.

The Oath, another edict handed down by the Geas, was a Blessing to be given at the Prince's discretion. In truth, many saw this as the greater gift than the Marks granted by his siblings. You see, the Blessings given to the royal children are the strongest form of magic, strengthened by the Geas itself. A Promise can be used to win battles, ensorcel a mind, and move entire mountains. Of course, should a Wizard die before the Promise is fulfilled, then the recipient is left with nothing.

But let us return to our story.

Finally it was time for the youngest Wizard to meet the little Prince. Michael strode forth once again to present his youngest son at the cradle. An infant himself, the boy did not understand why his father took his furled fist and laid it against the other child's forehead, holding it there even as startled green-blue eyes blinked open. His father's voice was deep and solemn in his ear, saying the words that would bind him to his own Promise. But you will see, by the end of our story, how our little Wizard managed to escape its fulfillment.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Four years later: Age 4

Dean had never seen so much food in one place before, not even at last month's Harvest Festival. He wanted to try everything, but his mom had his nurse, Rachel, keeping an eye on his plate. That meant he had to be sneaky, so he waited for his mom to start arguing with the armsmaster and for Rachel to start making weird faces at the younger lords before he made his move on the roasted ox and candied yams and apple tarts. It didn't take long for the consequences to kick in: a terrible ache in his stomach and an order to his bedchambers before the feast had even ended.

Despite his protests, the prince fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. With a hearty meal in his stomach and a warm fire in the hearth, Dean could have slept straight through the night, but when he opened his eyes the sky was still dark out. Stranger still, Rachel was nowhere to be seen and someone was shouting in the hallway.

The door to his room swung open and his mother rushed inside. Tears streaked down her face as she swept him up into her arms.

"Mama?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her neck. He was frightened. The only time his mother had cried before was when bad things had happened to Grandfather Samuel.

"Don't worry, Bear," she cooed, running a hand through his hair. "You're safe."

"Don't coddle the boy, Mary," his father boomed from the shadowed doorway. "He'll find out soon enough." A baby was crying in the hallway and the King fixed Mary with a pointed stare. "Sam needs you right now."

His mother pulled back, setting Dean on the edge of his bed. She cupped his chin gently in her hands and told him, "Don't be afraid, my brave boy. Nothing's going to hurt you."

This did nothing to ease his fears, so he slid off the bed to follow his mother, but a sharp glance from his father ordered him to stay. As she walked by her husband, the Queen laid a hand on his arm. "He's only four. Please remember that."

John calmly replied, "One day he will be king. He needs to remember ithat/i."

Dean didn't need a reminder.

"Most people see life as periods of calm interrupted by brief moments of chaos," his father had told him once. "That is why most people will never be king. Every day of peace is simply another day for you to prepare for war."

Dean was still too little to train with sword or shield, so he had a different way of staying vigilant. He stepped into his slippers, straightened his night shirt, and stood at attention before his father. Everything was where it should be.

Except his father. Dean didn't know what to do when his father sat down on the floor and beckoned him forward. His mother and sometimes Rachel were the only ones who held him. His father's hand against his back felt strange and sitting in his lap was somehow worse than the hardest bench in Bobby's study.

"Have you learned of Lucifer yet in your studies?" John demanded.

Dean relaxed at the usual commanding tone. "No sir."

"I'll have to speak to Singer about starting you on more recent history," John sighed. "Do you know who High Wizard Michael is?"

"Yes, sir," Dean nodded curtly.

"Tell me."

"The High Wizard is the Keeper of the Oath as writ in the Gas. The High Wizard and his children get to keep all their magic and have to abide by the Blessing and the Binding. The High Wizard serves the kingdom and speaks for all the magefolk," Dean recited, eyes fixed on ceiling as he tried to remember the exact words Bobby had used to explain the big, scribbly rock in the Sanctuary.

"The Geas," John corrected him. "And what is the Blessing and the Binding?"

"The g-eh-sh," Dean said clearly, "says the High Wizard and his family have to Bless the children of the Throne at their six-month Blessing Ceremony. If they can't because they are too little―"

"Too young," John interrupted.

"Too young," Dean repeated, "then they have to swear an Oath to do what Sam wants."

"Any child of the throne," John stopped him again. "Two Oaths have been sworn to you as well. That's enough for the Blessing. Do you know what the Binding is?"

"The Binding means that if they hurt someone, they lose their magic?" Dean said, twisting his fingers into the hem of his nightshirt. He screwed his brows together as he tried to remember more.

"If magic is used on anyone without magic of their own, the Geas stone strips that Wizard of their power. The only time when this is not true is when granting a Blessing," the king clarified.

"Michael is the High Wizard right now, but he had a brother, Lucifer. Lucifer was a great Wizard, but a terrible man."

Dean listened quietly.

"He was married to my cousin Lilith, who was next in line to the throne before you were born. Ten years ago, there was an assassination attempt on my life. Poison was placed in my wine, and only by chance was Lilith the one to drink it that day. No one could prove that Lucifer was the culprit, but he had the most to gain from my death. Michael didn't want to kill his brother, but he was afraid Lucifer would hurt someone else, so he banished him. But all magic, except for Blessings, weakens over time. Lucifer was able to break the banishment. He chose to come back tonight."

Dean sat very still and tried to keep eye contact with his father. A prince should always look people in the eye when they are speaking to him, but now he couldn't look away even if he wanted to. He needed to know why the bad Wizard had returned and why everyone was so upset.

"As a member of the High Wizard's family, he is still eligible to give a Blessing."

"Did he give one to Sam?" Dean blurted out and covered his mouth immediately after, but John didn't seem angry. He didn't even seem disappointed.

"Yes," the king said, heaving out a deep sigh. "But it was not a Blessing like the Mark of Courage or the Mark of Wisdom. Lucifer found a very old curse and he twisted it into the form of a Blessing. It is called the Mark of the Wretched."

Dean hadn't gotten into trouble for his last question, so he dared another. "What is that?"

"It was used long ago," the king said, shifting his son so that they sat side by side. "A man would be punished by cutting out his eyes and limbs. He would be in excruciating pain and completely unable to move."

Dean tried not to cry, but couldn't stop the shivering that ran through his bones. The king didn't seem to notice, or if he did, chose to ignore it.

"The Mark of the Wretched, also known as the Mark of Cain, would be placed on him to keep him alive through the suffering inflicted through torture until a second Mark, the Mark of the Redeemed, would be placed on him. The Mark of the Redeemed would kill him instantly."

"He did that to Sammy?" Dean whispered, shrinking into himself.

"Michael banished him again before he could place the second Mark."

Dean sagged in relief, tiny shoulders slumping under his father's grip.

"But that doesn't mean he is no longer in danger. Should Lucifer return and cast the second Mark, your brother will die." John unfolded his legs and stood up in one fluid motion, pulling his sun up by his hand. "We must remove the first Mark before the banishment spell weakens enough for Lucifer to break through. We have a lot of work to do, Dean. You must work very hard."

The little prince nodded and squeezed his father's hand. He could never let down the King.

Age 5

Dean wandered further into the trees. Gordon was boring to play with but his dad was a tracker, so Dean had to hide really well. There was an oak on the other side of the yellow rose arbor with a big hole between in its branches where Gordon would never find him.

Dean moved as quietly as he could through the trees. Every so often, he would stop and listen for the other boy. If Gordon got too close, he'd have to hide quickly. There were no crunching footsteps and Dean prepared to move on when he heard it, a strange whistling that pierced the woods better than a shout.

No bird had a song quite like it, and Dean felt like a fool when he realized it wasn't a bird at all. It was a person. The old oak would have to wait, because Dean had something else to find now.

He ran as quickly as he could towards the sound. These woods were encircled by the castle walls. No one else was supposed to be in here. As he neared the northern wall, he caught sight of a little boy in a dark robe standing in the middle of a clearing. Across from him prowled a great shaggy wolf with gleaming yellow eyes.

Dean grabbed the dagger at his waist, a little gold triangle he'd gotten for his birthday. The emeralds crusting the handle hurt his fingers and the blade was too soft to break skin, but it was all Dean was allowed to carry.

He leapt through the last line of brush with a warning shout. The wolf swung its massive head to stare him down with its narrow eyes, a low snarl rumbling through its chest.

"Run!" Dean yelled at the other boy, sparing a glance to his side to see if he had gotten away, but instead of fleeing through the trees back towards the castle, the other boy darted towards the wolf.

"No! Stop!" he cried, holding his hands out between them. "Don't hurt him!"

Dean grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to drag the mad boy back.

"What are you doing?" he asked, bewildered that the other boy was trying to protect him when he was the one with the dagger. "It's a wolf!" he pointed out, in case the boy hadn't realized.

The little boy turned around, eyeing Dean and his weapon with a frown. "He's my friend."

"You can't be friends with a wolf!" Dean protested and glared at the beast who was absently licking its front paw.

"Why not?"

"Because people are friends with people, not wolves!"

"I like Chuck," the boy said with dignity.

"Oh," Dean said dubiously. "Well you should be friends with people, too."

"What people?"

Dean didn't even have to think before he said with a grin, "Me!"

The other little boy played with the hem of his sleeve, staring intently at the ground before lifting his head to look Dean up and down before glancing back at the wolf who'd moved on to sniffing one of the trees. "Yes, we will be friends," he said finally.

"Great! What's your name?" Dean said, proud that he'd found someone interesting to be friends with. He stuck the dagger back into his belt.

"I'm Castiel," the other boy said, walking a few steps so that he could scratch the wolf behind one of its ears.

"Did your family just move to the castle? I haven't seen you before."

The boy nodded, though his attention was on the wolf, Chuck. The animal nudged the kid's face once before bounding away over the hill. Dean wanted to ask what was going on, but his father had told him that you couldn't do that before getting through certain pleasantries first.

"Yes. We moved here two months ago. The king says I need to stay close to the prince." Castiel looked up through the branches, swaying a little on his feet.

Dean's eyes widened. He would get to spend time with his new friend by decree of the king himself. "That's great!"

By the frown on his serious face, Castiel didn't seem to agree. "I have a duty to uphold the Geas between our families," he said.

"You're a Wizard!" Dean blurted out. His mother had told him that Michael's family would be coming to live at the castle for a while, but he hadn't made the connection to this strange boy.

Castiel blinked at him with guileless blue eyes. "Yes. I will be working closely with Prince Samuel."

Dean's spirit sank a little when he heard his brother's name. But then he remembered that he was owed a blessing as well. "And me!"

The little Wizard frowned at him, cocking his head to one side. "Who are you?"

"I'm Dean!"

"Oh!" It came out as little more than a whisper. Suddenly, the other boy's face went blank and he dropped to his knees. "Your majesty."

"No," Dean said desperately. "Get up. You have to call me Dean."

"But you're the prince," the other boy said, eyes cast down, though he did climb back to his feet.

"We're friends!" He didn't like this new distance that had opened up between them. It seemed vitally important that Castiel treat him like he did before he found out who Dean was.

The Wizard thought about it for a moment. He seemed to think a lot. But when he opened his mouth and said, "Hello, Dean," and it was the greatest thing Dean had heard all day.

The prince grinned so hard his cheeks began to ache. "Hi, Cas."

Age 6

"What are you doing?" Dean asked as he burst into the Roundroom, panting slightly from sprinting up the steps.

The fat rat dropped from Castiel's hands and scurried into the walls. "Practicing," Castiel huffed and squatted down in front of the hole, peering into the darkness.

"Practicing what?" Dean knelt down next to him and tried to see what he saw.

"Magic. Father says I have an affinity for animals, so I should start practicing with them until I am stronger."

Dean wrinkled up his nose. There were so many words he had to learn. He had not even mastered one language when Master Singer was talking about starting him on a second. "Affie-what?"

"Affinity," Castiel said patiently and poked a finger into the hole. "It means my magic has a natural harmony with animals."

"Oh." It was true. Though the rat hid stubbornly in its hole, animals were always acting like they understood what Cas wanted. Dean waited patiently for the rat to reappear, but only for a minute. Even Castiel was frowning in consternation when Dean tugged at his arm for him to stand and follow him down the stairs.

"Come on," Dean said, remembering his original purpose of tracking down the other boy. Dean headed through the door and Castiel followed, partly out of habit and partly out of curiosity. They stopped just outside a small door hidden behind a tapestry and slipped into the hidden corridor. The other end opened up at the back of the dais so the king could slip away in an emergency, but Dean, and by association, Castiel, played here whenever they didn't want to be found.

Dean leaned close to Castiel's ear and cupped a hand conspiratorially around his mouth. "Michael said something to my Father and they made everyone leave the Great Hall."

Castiel's eyes widened as he glanced to the door. "Dean, we shouldn't be here."

"Why not?" Dean demanded as he led them further towards the other end.

Footsteps hurried down the hall and they both stood still, breaths and hands held tight until it was quiet again. Castiel ducked his head and whispered seriously, "Rules exist because bad things happen if you don't follow them."

"Like what?" Dean scoffed. Bad things only happened to bad people. Thieves were imprisoned, murderers hanged, and traitors, though he'd never seen one, were beheaded. Sneaking into the Great Hall hardly deserved a tongue-lashing.

"Like the Mage Wars," Cas said quietly, staring angrily at his own hands fisted in the front of his robe.

"That's silly," Dean scoffed and grabbed his wrist. "You're just sneaking into the Great Hall, not being a Dark Wizard. Come on! We're going to miss it."

Cas wasn't entirely convinced, but curiosity won out and he found himself huddled in the doorway to the Great Hall.

Three boys quivered at the foot of the dais. They were grubby and thin and sharp as stone. Not one of them, not even the youngest, who must have been the same age as the secret boys in the wings, lowered his eyes when the king stood in front of them.

Michael and Raphael stood like dark pillars on either side of the throne in their star-flecked robes.

"Hedgewitches," Michael said, answering some question that Dean was too late to hear.

"I'm not a hedgewitch," the tallest boy sniped. "I'm a Wizard."

Raphael tried to stifle a laugh. He was fourteen, so they let him into these secret meetings, but Dean wouldn't have laughed at all.

"I am," the boy insisted. "My great-great-great-grandfather was Joshua Argenet."

Dean recognized the name, but only vaguely. There was a large green book on the second shelf with the name inscribed in the spine. Bobby never mentioned it during their studies, so he and Cas had taken it down one day to see what was in it. Without even reading a single word, he knew why the book wasn't touched. Joshua was a gardener. The book had nothing but spells and tips for crop cultivation.

"Try one," Dean had told him, but Cas crinkled his brow and shook his head and reached for the next volume on minor illusions, leaving Dean to reshelve Joshua's book on his own.

Cas had that same disappointed frown on his face now, as they watched the tall boy.

"It's my birthright," he insisted, getting angrier with each suppressed snort from Raphael.

"Even if your claim were true, the bloodline only extends one generation away. Otherwise, there would be hundreds of Wizards running around with magic," Raphael scoffed with a smug little smile on his face.

Michael did not look nearly as pleased, but he nodded in agreement. "Even if you believe you have a legitimate claim, the proper procedure is to petition the High Wizard. Access to the castle Sanctuary is strictly forbidden to outsiders."

The boy put on a sneer to match Raphael's. "As if anyone would give me a fair hearing. You're all just―"

One of the younger ones grabbed his arm with terrified urgency, stopping something truly offensive from coming out of his mouth. Dean regarded the silent exchange between the two boys, and knew the younger had won when the taller boy clenched his jaw in silence.

"Our papa is a farmer in Great Bend," the third boy piped up. "The river's dried up and the crops are dying. If we had just a little magic, we could bring back the rain."

Dean had heard people talking about the drought near the southern border, but he hadn't realized what it meant to the people living there.

"He should have asked father," Castiel whispered from next to him. His friend still looked upset, so Dean looped an arm around his shoulders and held him close.

"The drought is unfortunate," his father said, "but grain has been sent from the Northern provinces."

"It's not enough!" the first boy protested, cheeks aflame and eyes ringed with red. "The oxen are dying and we won't have enough seed left to plant next season and you're not helping! Everything around here is green and alive so you don't care―"

"Enough!" John roared and rose to his feet, towering and terrifying. Castiel clutched at Dean's knee, holding them both in place, watching stunned. "You have violated my rule of law, you have trespassed onto forbidden lands, and you have attempted to tamper with the one rule that holds this world in balance. From henceforth, you will be indentured to the Lower Guard and maybe you will learn some discipline."

The youngest boy started crying while the oldest screamed and the third tried to calm them both, even as they were led away.

Dean trembled. It took a lot to make the king lose his composure.

He waited for the door to close behind the Wizards before leaving the safety of his alcove. Castiel grabbed at his arm, trying to stop him, but he shook his friend off. He knew without looking that the Wizard would follow him into the open like his own little protector. They took the long way along the edge of the dais, down the steps, and back around to end up facing his father. The king didn't seem surprised to see Dean, but he lifted an eyebrow at Castiel.

"My Lord," Dean started tentatively.

"Dean," his father sighed.

"When it doesn't rain here for a long time, Michael makes it rain."

John watched, curious as to why his son had chosen this moment to reveal himself.

"Why can't he do that for Great Bend?"

Instead of answering, John turned to the other, silent boy before him. "Do you know why, Castiel?"

Dean frowned and turned to his friend. Castiel had been wilting slowly ever since he was forced out of hiding, but at the curious look, he straightened and took a deep breath. "Yes?" He winced at the uncertainty in his voice. "I do," he tried again.

"Well go on," the King prompted.

"Weather magic takes a lot of time and power," he explained. Even Gabriel couldn't make any real clouds yet, but he didn't add that detail. "In dry climates like Great Bend, the rain would stop as soon as they left, so to have enough rain to grow crops, they need to stay in the area for the entire growing season. The northern regions can grow enough to feed the entire kingdom, so they focus their time there. "

Michael, Raphael, Anna, and even Gabriel were always busy. Cas rarely got to see his father outside of court. When they weren't taking care of one matter or another, they spent their time going all over the world to bring back books and scrolls that might help Sam. The only reason Cas had any time to spend with Dean was because his magic wasn't strong enough yet, and both of them were still learning to read.

Castiel looked at his friend with trepidation, fingers twining together unconsciously. Dean deflated and stood contritely before him and before his father. How could he fault them when they were trying to save Sam?

Later, under the cover of night, Dean snuck out of his bedroom and up the spindly Wizard's Tower. Careful not to wake Gabriel, he tugged Castiel from his bed to sit on the narrow steps outside their chambers.

"Cas, when you're the Royal Wizard," Dean said earnestly, "You have to have a big family, big enough to help everybody."

To the other seven-year-old, this was perfectly sound reasoning. They clasped their hands together in solemn agreement and fell asleep in the stairwell.

Age 8

The skittish black foal stumbled across the stall to bump her nose against the wooden slats.

"Hi!" Dean said and shoved a hand through the planks, but the horse backed away and shrank into the protective hollow of her mother's side before he could touch her coat. The young Prince was crushed. He had waited for his father's mare to foal for nearly a year now. Impala was going to be his first horse. She was sleek, strong, and beautiful, just like his father's horse.

"One day," the king had said when he'd first shown her to Dean, "she will carry you into battle, but more important than that, she'll carry you home."

A year ago, Michael and John had ridden out with two thousand men when the Islands attacked Thousand Port. They returned three months later, tired and tautly strung, but victorious. A prisoner came with them, a boy only a year or two older than Dean.

"Lady Moseley will take him as her ward," John explained. The boy was gone two days later. After that, Dean's routine changed. While Dean used to have lessons with Bobby before noon and the rest of his days free to tag along with Cas' research or play with Sam, he now had to sit through general councils with his father and take up weapons lessons with the armsmaster.

Once Impala could bear his weight, he would have riding lessons as well. Dean didn't mind the work. He liked the tingly, excited feeling he got after lessons with Rufus and he couldn't wait to ride beside his father instead of being stuck sharing a saddle with one of the knights, but he missed his friends and felt useless when it came to helping Sam.

For the last two months, Dean had to climb the Wizard's tower every morning at dawn with a tray laden with food enough for two. Otherwise, Cas would skip breakfast and he wouldn't see his best friend until after well supper when the Wizards would make a report on the day's progress. Even though the older Wizards each had their individual duties to attend to, they found time to research, plan, and procure documents. But Sam was Dean's flesh and blood - and more importantly than that, Sam was Dean's brother. He should be the one pilfering books from the Blue Library or picking the brains of the scholars from the southern coast.

Mary had tried to explain it to him once. "I know you don't think you're doing enough for your brother, but what you do is just as important as anything Anna or Raphael has done."

"How?"

"Look there." Mary drew Dean close and pointed at a lone ant that was tentatively circling a lost bread crumb sitting on the window sill. "Do you see that ant?"

Dean nodded and moved to flick it out of the window before his mother stopped him.

"That ant," Mary said firmly, holding Dean's hand, "is just one of hundreds of ants living in its colony. Its job is to go out into the world and find food. There are drone ants whose job it is to make new baby ants. There are soldier ants that give their lives fighting off bigger, stronger insects. And there is a queen who is the very heart of the colony. Which do you think is the most important?"

Dean wrinkled his nose and thought what his mother would want him to answer. His first impulse was to indicate the Queen. After all, he and Sammy and the King all loved Mary the most, but this was a lesson which usually meant there was a moral at the end of the story. "All of them?" he guessed.

"Why?" she said gently.

"The soldiers because they defend the kingdom and make sure everyone's safe. The workers because they find the food so no one goes hungry. The drones because they keep the kingdom going after the old ants have died. And the queen because there wouldn't be a colony without her," he rattled off.

"Hm," she said and seemed to give it some thought. "That seems about right. Now what about in our kingdom? Whose job is the most important? The king? The queen?" She pointed at herself with a raised eyebrow and a slight smile that made Dean laugh. "The Wizards?" She paused and Dean bit his lip. He wanted to blurt out yes, that they were doing everything, but he was starting to understand what his mother was trying to tell him. "Or my big, strong Bear?" At the use of his childhood nickname, she dug her fingers into his ribs until he was shrieking with laughter, any trepidation forgotten in the sensation and the joy of his mother's glowing presence.

After he'd exhausted his lungs and collapsed in his mother's arms like a baby, he calmed and started to think. The initial worry wormed its way back into his thoughts. It was true that he didn't do anything. He was getting ready to be king, which needed a little bit of every ant. The king made sure everyone was safe, no one went hungry, and held all the lords together as one. But Dean wasn't king yet. John was. Dean didn't want to have to wait countless years before he could help.

Mary seemed to sense the disquiet in her son because she hauled him into her lap and wrapped her arms around his waist even though he was far too old to be coddled like this. "What's going on in your head?" she said.

"I want to do more," Dean admitted quietly.

She sighed over the top of his head. "Then you shall."

Dean started in surprise and twisted to look his mother in the face. She smiled down at him like an angel with her golden hair framed in sunlight from the open window. He found himself smiling back, misery lightened by her very presence.

"You're going to have two new jobs. First, I'm going to speak with Master Singer and have him work with Michael or Raphael to devise lessons on magic history and theory."

Dean groaned. More useless lessons were hardly what he'd count as important work.

"You said you wanted to help Sam and you can't help him if you don't understand what the problem is in the first place."

Dean nodded grudgingly then asked, "And what's my second job?"

"Your second job is to make sure Castiel doesn't go gray by the time he's eleven."

It was scary how easy it was to imagine Cas bent over and wrinkled by his next birthday. More than once he'd heard Lady Missouri sigh and call Cas an "old soul." Dean didn't know much about souls, but he knew that Cas acted like he was older than his father sometimes.

"I swear if that boy still had his mother..." Mary sighed and shook her head before fixing Dean with a serious stare. "Now I know Anna tries her best to get him to eat and sleep, but it'll be your job to make sure he has some time to relax as well, that he doesn't bury himself so deep in those books that he forgets what the rest of the world looks like."

"I will," Dean agreed quickly. "I can do that."

The next day, Dean excused himself early from dinner and ran up the Wizard's Tower for the second time that day. He had a job to do and he wasn't waiting another moment to do it. When Dean said, "Come on! I want to show you something," he was fully prepared to pick up the Wizard and carry him down the steps if he had to. Luckily, Cas just gave him a curious look, placed a marker in the big tome at his feet, snuffed out the smelly candles burning around the circle drawn on the floor, tucked some pouches into his sleeves, and followed him down the stairs.

"Oh," Cas breathed and hung between two of the posts. "She's beautiful."

Dean beamed proudly at the filly in the training field from his spot standing atop the second beam. "She is! She doesn't like me though."

"Really?" Cas said and looked offended on Dean's behalf.

"Come up," Dean said and tugged on the collar of Cas' robe until the Wizard climbed up next to him. "Watch."

Dean whistled and called Impala's name and every other trick he'd learned from the stable boys, but the most he got from the horse was a flick of her tale in his general direction. "See?"

Castiel frowned, nose wrinkling up before he said solemnly, "You're doing it wrong. Let me try."

He scrunched up his entire face in concentration and Dean waited, enraptured, waiting to see what would happen.

"Come here, Impala," Cas commanded lowly.

"She didn't even hear you," Dean started to say, but silenced himself as the filly's ears perked up and she swung her head slowly towards them. His breath caught in his chest as he watched in amazement as the horse trotted straight at them and proceeded to stick her nose right in Castiel's outstretched hand.

"You used magic!" Dean said, half accusatory, half impressed.

"Yes," Cas nodded. "It's an ancient Wizards' secret, passed down from generation to generation. I can show you if you want."

"I can't do magic," Dean grumbled, and sulkily dropped his chin to the top rung of the fence, refusing to look at his friend or his traitorous horse.

"You can do this one," Cas said, touching Dean on the shoulder to get his attention back. "I promise."

Dean grudgingly turned his head to look as Cas reached slowly into his sleeve, took a deep breath, zeroing his gaze at Dean's eyes, and drew out an apple. Impala immediately bit into the fruit and pranced away with her prize between her teeth, tail swaying high in the wind.

Cas smiled sheepishly up at Dean who couldn't decide whether to laugh or feel cheated. In the end, he settled on a third option. "That was your apple! You were supposed to eat that for breakfast!"

"I know," Cas admitted. "But Anna brings me breakfast most mornings, too, so I have enough to eat."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Dean asked, a little hurt that Cas had been keeping a secret.

Cas shrugged and stuck his legs through the next beam up, swinging them loosely as he sagged into the seat. "I didn't want you to stop coming." He looked down at the ground and mumbled, "I would miss you."

"Well," Dean said gruffly. "I guess I'd miss you too."

Cas looked up with wide eyes. "You're not mad?"

"You still should have told me," Dean shot back with a forced frown on his face. "I could have been eating twice as much breakfast all this time."

Cas grinned his biggest smile, the one that Dean considered ihis/i smile, reserved for best friends only. "I wouldn't want you to get too fat to sit on your new horse."

"Says the one who's been eating two breakfasts every morning," Dean accused shrilly.

"I have not. Gabriel usually eats it."

"Oh," Dean considered, thinking of the other Wizard's chubby cheeks and perpetually sticky fingers. "That explains a lot."

"Will you keep coming?" Cas asked after a while.

"Yes," Dean said and clambered onto the beam next to the Wizard, pressing their shoulders together. "It's my job."

Age 10

Sam was six when they found the old abandoned mill. It was at the edge of the capital, far beyond the walls that held the city proper. Its broken waterwheel sat crookedly in the jagged scar of land that once held a flowing stream.

They weren't supposed to be there, of course. Cas should be studying Sam's curse, which meant holding his hands and trying to feel out the shape of the Mark inside him. That was exactly what they had been doing when Dean had showed up on his filly. It was the first day that the horsemaster had let him ride Impala out of the yard and his first stop was the stoop outside the Wizard's tower. Sam fell in love with the horse in the same way he loved anything new. Cas wasn't as enthusiastic, but it had been days since he'd been able to drag Cas away from his books, and there was nothing to do but ride out the back gate with Sam at the front, clinging to the pommel, and Castiel in the back clinging to Dean.

Dean, however, was ecstatic. Cas just didn't know how wonderful it was to ride a horse, the freedom of wind blowing through his hair, the ability to go anywhere, anytime. One day he'd learn to zap place to place like his siblings could, but for now he was just as land-bound as the rest of them.

And how could he leave Sam cooped up in the castle when he was out riding through the countryside?

Dean laughed as Castiel's grip on his ribs tightened when he pushed Impala into a full gallop. Sam was squealing with glee, his laughs coming in bursts as the horse came crashing down with each step. Still, he made sure to keep his elbows around his brother's waist in case his little hands came off the pommel.

Sam's hair was all over his face, tickling his nose and making his eyes water, and Cas' bony chin was digging painfully into the back of his shoulder, but there, on that horse, was one of the happiest moments of his life.

They rode for an hour through the woods outside the sprawling town that had grown around the capital walls before Sam grew tired and they headed back. Dean decided to take a new route, for a little more excitement, and they'd ended up coming out of the forest at the old mill.

"Hey, let's go in. Impala could use a break," Dean suggested, sliding out from between the other two boys. Castiel half-slid, half-fell out of the saddle while Dean lifted his arms to help Sam off.

"It might not be safe," Cas said as he eyed the structure dubiously.

The worn wooden beams and the flaking paint didn't inspire much confidence.

"Sammy, you keep an eye on Impala. I'll go check it out," Dean said, leaving his brother to play with the filly's waving tail.

"Dean!" Castiel called after him but Dean was already leaping across the abandoned wheelbarrow that lay out front and reaching for the door.

A layer of fine dust rose up to clog his lungs as he walked in, but once his coughing fit passed, he looked around and gaped in wonder. Someone had painted an entire wall with images of dragons and unicorns and angels, all manner of magical creatures. It reminded Dean of the fairy tale books that littered Sam's old nursery, except all the creatures were together like all the stories clashed together into one magnificent world.

"Sam! Cas! You have to see this!" he yelled through the open doorway.

When they came in, Sam clinging to Cas' hand, even the somber little Wizard seemed in awe. "It's beautiful," he breathed, coughing slightly at the dust. Sam, however, seemed more interested in clambering over the great grinding stone and machinery that was still attached to the ruined waterwheel.

Dean wouldn't say it, because only girls found things beautiful, but silently, he sort of agreed.

Age 11

A light bobbed through the darkness. It floated, green and ethereal like stories of will-o'-the-wisps, but Dean wasn't standing in the midst of a foggy wood. He was indoors, halfway down the western corridor where tapestries covered the windows and the torches were unlit.

"Dean!" Castiel's voice called excitedly. His round face emerged into the eerie glow of the sphere.

"What is that?" Dean demanded as he drifted closer, transfixed by the green light.

"It's a mage light," Castiel said. "You can touch it."

The light tingled when Dean swiped his fingers through the edges and if he thrust his hand into the center, it felt like a thousand firebugs were crawling over his skin. He laughed and waved his hand through its center, watching the glow creep along his fingers until it reached his knuckles.

"You made this?" Dean asked, grinning up at his friend.

"Yes," Castiel whispered proudly.

"You should make one in Sammy's room. He doesn't like the candles very much and Isaac always has to get him the sweet wood to burn in the fireplace."

Castiel's face fell. "Oh. I can't leave it somewhere. I have to be there to keep it going."

"That's still really amazing!" Dean amended hastily. "We can sneak out into the woods and scare Rufus when he's out hunting!"

"Dean," Castiel chastised. "He'll shoot us."

Dean chewed on his lip, thinking of ways to get around that snag in his plans. "Maybe we should do it to Gabriel instead."

"Gabriel can make ten mage lights at once!"

"Wow," Dean's eyes widened.

"And he can make it look like a real fire. He was going to pretend the kitchen was on fire."

"But the kitchen was on fire!" Dean scowled.

"Yes," Cas ducked his head and the mage light disappeared when he dropped his hands. "But that wasn't Gabriel."

They both stood quietly in the dark, waiting for their eyes to adjust. The fire had killed one of the kitchen boys and two dogs. Dean hadn't been there, but Cas had seen the boy when Raphael tried to tend to his wounds. A loud snuffle ripped through the air.

"Cas?" Dean whispered, feeling out to clutch onto his friend's sleeve.

"I'm fine," Cas whispered back.

"Come on," Dean prodded the Wizard in the side. "Let's go show Sam."

"Yes," Cas said, but Dean knew he was still upset.

"And then we can all go scare Bobby," he decided. That should cheer them all up.

Age 13

Dean knew this day would come, but it hadn't for so long that he'd almost forgotten. There was always another normal week, another normal day, another normal hour when a nameless messenger popped his bubble.

Lucifer had been spotted crossing the Narrow Strait back to the continent. The three days it took to make final arrangements had a facade of normalcy. Dean woke at the same time, would begin lessons at the same time, would eat at the same time. Yet it felt like time had lost its bearing. The minutes would drag on and on then catch up all at once.

In one fell swoop, he was going to lose his mother, his brother, and his best friend. They were leaving in less than a day with Michael, Anna, and Gabriel. All the Wizards had become a constant presence in his life. Not just Cas, who had insinuated himself into Dean's very perception of reality, but Anna with her steady hand and ferocious temper, Gabriel with his ability to take even the darkest fears and turn them into light and laughter. Raphael would be the only one to stay behind: the interim Royal Wizard at only twenty-two.

On the last day, Dean couldn't focus on a single thing past the giddy hope that had been building in his head as he schemed through the night. Rufus had him on his backside for the twentieth time that day before he'd thrown down his sword and dismissed the prince in disgust. Dean didn't bother changing or even taking off his leather padding before he ran through the Wizard's great room and straight through Castiel's door.

"You know how to teleport!" he said triumphantly, out of breath after running up the spiral steps.

Castiel startled, his clothing half-packed into his lone pack. "Yes," he said and narrowed his eyes. "Gabriel told you." At thirteen, he was just as serious as his father, burdened since the age of four with the salvation of the youngest prince.

"Yes, Gabriel had to tell me!" Dean was pissed. "You can visit! You can bring Sam! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you would ask me to do this," Castiel returned to packing, far too calm for Dean's level of agitation. "It would not be safe for Sam to return."

"You don't have to bring him here. You can take him to the old mill and no one would have to know." The abandoned mill was their secret spot away from everything, where courtiers and tutors and parents couldn't find them.

"Dean, you don't think Lucifer will have the entire capital watched, just waiting for Sam to become homesick or for you to become nostalgic? It isn't safe!" Castiel fixed him with that terrible glare, unmitigated by his otherwise childish face.

"Then we'll go outside the capital. You can put up wards in the forest. And the wolves can sniff out any danger, right?"

Castiel set down the stockings he had been folding and took two steps towards Dean until they would be practically nose to nose if Cas were taller. Dean could see every wrinkle in his eyelids as the shorter boy squinted up at him. "Do you truly think that if there was a way for Sam to be near his home, my father, my brothers and my sister, your parents, none of them would have tried it? You're being needlessly reckless."

"Needlessly―" Dean blustered. "Do you even care that we're never going to see each other again?"

Castiel's eyes shuttered immediately, expression going carefully blank. "We will see each other once a year as you well know. Raphael will bring you and your father to our location on Sam's birthday. And we will be back once the curse is broken."

Dean's heart sank. He hadn't meant to hurt Cas, to imply that he would never find a way to undo Lucifer's mark. Still, it could take years. Cas was nowhere near as strong as his uncle and had just starting to master intermediate level magic. Once a year, one day out of three hundred and sixty-five was a pittance when compared to seeing each other every day. It was a drought after eight years of torrential rains. "That's not enough," Dean argued. "How can you say that's enough? Do you even care?"

He didn't expect tears, nor did he expect rage. Castiel was always calmer, quieter, but still Dean didn't expect his best friend who he wasn't going to see again for a long, long time to act like nothing was wrong and pick up his ugly gray stockings and start to fold them again. "When I break the curse," Castiel said tersely, "we can all come back. Then, we can go anywhere we want. The faster that happens, the better. I'm happy we're leaving. I'll be able to focus, to concentrate on making it all better."

Something snapped inside Dean and he felt everything at once as all the emotions that Cas seemed to lack flooded into him. He was angry and miserable and devastated and had to turn away before Cas could see the tears in his eyes. If Cas didn't care, then Dean wouldn't either. Besides, he still had his brother and mother to worry about. He didn't need to miss anyone else, especially someone who wouldn't miss him.

Without glancing back, Dean fled the room to find Sam. He had one last day and he wasn't wasting it on some ungrateful Wizard.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Four years later: Age 4

Dean had never seen so much food in one place before, not even at last month's Harvest Festival. He wanted to try everything, but his mom had his nurse, Rachel, keeping an eye on his plate. That meant he had to be sneaky, so he waited for his mom to start arguing with the armsmaster and for Rachel to start making weird faces at the younger lords before he made his move on the roasted ox and candied yams and apple tarts. It didn't take long for the consequences to kick in: a terrible ache in his stomach and an order to his bedchambers before the feast had even ended.

Despite his protests, the prince fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. With a hearty meal in his stomach and a warm fire in the hearth, Dean could have slept straight through the night, but when he opened his eyes the sky was still dark out. Stranger still, Rachel was nowhere to be seen and someone was shouting in the hallway.

The door to his room swung open and his mother rushed inside. Tears streaked down her face as she swept him up into her arms.

"Mama?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her neck. He was frightened. The only time his mother had cried before was when bad things had happened to Grandfather Samuel.

"Don't worry, Bear," she cooed, running a hand through his hair. "You're safe."

"Don't coddle the boy, Mary," his father boomed from the shadowed doorway. "He'll find out soon enough." A baby was crying in the hallway and the King fixed Mary with a pointed stare. "Sam needs you right now."

His mother pulled back, setting Dean on the edge of his bed. She cupped his chin gently in her hands and told him, "Don't be afraid, my brave boy. Nothing's going to hurt you."

This did nothing to ease his fears, so he slid off the bed to follow his mother, but a sharp glance from his father ordered him to stay. As she walked by her husband, the Queen laid a hand on his arm. "He's only four. Please remember that."

John calmly replied, "One day he will be king. He needs to remember ithat/i."

Dean didn't need a reminder.

"Most people see life as periods of calm interrupted by brief moments of chaos," his father had told him once. "That is why most people will never be king. Every day of peace is simply another day for you to prepare for war."

Dean was still too little to train with sword or shield, so he had a different way of staying vigilant. He stepped into his slippers, straightened his night shirt, and stood at attention before his father. Everything was where it should be.

Except his father. Dean didn't know what to do when his father sat down on the floor and beckoned him forward. His mother and sometimes Rachel were the only ones who held him. His father's hand against his back felt strange and sitting in his lap was somehow worse than the hardest bench in Bobby's study.

"Have you learned of Lucifer yet in your studies?" John demanded.

Dean relaxed at the usual commanding tone. "No sir."

"I'll have to speak to Singer about starting you on more recent history," John sighed. "Do you know who High Wizard Michael is?"

"Yes, sir," Dean nodded curtly.

"Tell me."

"The High Wizard is the Keeper of the Oath as writ in the Gas. The High Wizard and his children get to keep all their magic and have to abide by the Blessing and the Binding. The High Wizard serves the kingdom and speaks for all the magefolk," Dean recited, eyes fixed on ceiling as he tried to remember the exact words Bobby had used to explain the big, scribbly rock in the Sanctuary.

"The Geas," John corrected him. "And what is the Blessing and the Binding?"

"The g-eh-sh," Dean said clearly, "says the High Wizard and his family have to Bless the children of the Throne at their six-month Blessing Ceremony. If they can't because they are too little―"

"Too young," John interrupted.

"Too young," Dean repeated, "then they have to swear an Oath to do what Sam wants."

"Any child of the throne," John stopped him again. "Two Oaths have been sworn to you as well. That's enough for the Blessing. Do you know what the Binding is?"

"The Binding means that if they hurt someone, they lose their magic?" Dean said, twisting his fingers into the hem of his nightshirt. He screwed his brows together as he tried to remember more.

"If magic is used on anyone without magic of their own, the Geas stone strips that Wizard of their power. The only time when this is not true is when granting a Blessing," the king clarified.

"Michael is the High Wizard right now, but he had a brother, Lucifer. Lucifer was a great Wizard, but a terrible man."

Dean listened quietly.

"He was married to my cousin Lilith, who was next in line to the throne before you were born. Ten years ago, there was an assassination attempt on my life. Poison was placed in my wine, and only by chance was Lilith the one to drink it that day. No one could prove that Lucifer was the culprit, but he had the most to gain from my death. Michael didn't want to kill his brother, but he was afraid Lucifer would hurt someone else, so he banished him. But all magic, except for Blessings, weakens over time. Lucifer was able to break the banishment. He chose to come back tonight."

Dean sat very still and tried to keep eye contact with his father. A prince should always look people in the eye when they are speaking to him, but now he couldn't look away even if he wanted to. He needed to know why the bad Wizard had returned and why everyone was so upset.

"As a member of the High Wizard's family, he is still eligible to give a Blessing."

"Did he give one to Sam?" Dean blurted out and covered his mouth immediately after, but John didn't seem angry. He didn't even seem disappointed.

"Yes," the king said, heaving out a deep sigh. "But it was not a Blessing like the Mark of Courage or the Mark of Wisdom. Lucifer found a very old curse and he twisted it into the form of a Blessing. It is called the Mark of the Wretched."

Dean hadn't gotten into trouble for his last question, so he dared another. "What is that?"

"It was used long ago," the king said, shifting his son so that they sat side by side. "A man would be punished by cutting out his eyes and limbs. He would be in excruciating pain and completely unable to move."

Dean tried not to cry, but couldn't stop the shivering that ran through his bones. The king didn't seem to notice, or if he did, chose to ignore it.

"The Mark of the Wretched, also known as the Mark of Cain, would be placed on him to keep him alive through the suffering inflicted through torture until a second Mark, the Mark of the Redeemed, would be placed on him. The Mark of the Redeemed would kill him instantly."

"He did that to Sammy?" Dean whispered, shrinking into himself.

"Michael banished him again before he could place the second Mark."

Dean sagged in relief, tiny shoulders slumping under his father's grip.

"But that doesn't mean he is no longer in danger. Should Lucifer return and cast the second Mark, your brother will die." John unfolded his legs and stood up in one fluid motion, pulling his sun up by his hand. "We must remove the first Mark before the banishment spell weakens enough for Lucifer to break through. We have a lot of work to do, Dean. You must work very hard."

The little prince nodded and squeezed his father's hand. He could never let down the King.

Age 5

Dean wandered further into the trees. Gordon was boring to play with but his dad was a tracker, so Dean had to hide really well. There was an oak on the other side of the yellow rose arbor with a big hole between in its branches where Gordon would never find him.

Dean moved as quietly as he could through the trees. Every so often, he would stop and listen for the other boy. If Gordon got too close, he'd have to hide quickly. There were no crunching footsteps and Dean prepared to move on when he heard it, a strange whistling that pierced the woods better than a shout.

No bird had a song quite like it, and Dean felt like a fool when he realized it wasn't a bird at all. It was a person. The old oak would have to wait, because Dean had something else to find now.

He ran as quickly as he could towards the sound. These woods were encircled by the castle walls. No one else was supposed to be in here. As he neared the northern wall, he caught sight of a little boy in a dark robe standing in the middle of a clearing. Across from him prowled a great shaggy wolf with gleaming yellow eyes.

Dean grabbed the dagger at his waist, a little gold triangle he'd gotten for his birthday. The emeralds crusting the handle hurt his fingers and the blade was too soft to break skin, but it was all Dean was allowed to carry.

He leapt through the last line of brush with a warning shout. The wolf swung its massive head to stare him down with its narrow eyes, a low snarl rumbling through its chest.

"Run!" Dean yelled at the other boy, sparing a glance to his side to see if he had gotten away, but instead of fleeing through the trees back towards the castle, the other boy darted towards the wolf.

"No! Stop!" he cried, holding his hands out between them. "Don't hurt him!"

Dean grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to drag the mad boy back.

"What are you doing?" he asked, bewildered that the other boy was trying to protect him when he was the one with the dagger. "It's a wolf!" he pointed out, in case the boy hadn't realized.

The little boy turned around, eyeing Dean and his weapon with a frown. "He's my friend."

"You can't be friends with a wolf!" Dean protested and glared at the beast who was absently licking its front paw.

"Why not?"

"Because people are friends with people, not wolves!"

"I like Chuck," the boy said with dignity.

"Oh," Dean said dubiously. "Well you should be friends with people, too."

"What people?"

Dean didn't even have to think before he said with a grin, "Me!"

The other little boy played with the hem of his sleeve, staring intently at the ground before lifting his head to look Dean up and down before glancing back at the wolf who'd moved on to sniffing one of the trees. "Yes, we will be friends," he said finally.

"Great! What's your name?" Dean said, proud that he'd found someone interesting to be friends with. He stuck the dagger back into his belt.

"I'm Castiel," the other boy said, walking a few steps so that he could scratch the wolf behind one of its ears.

"Did your family just move to the castle? I haven't seen you before."

The boy nodded, though his attention was on the wolf, Chuck. The animal nudged the kid's face once before bounding away over the hill. Dean wanted to ask what was going on, but his father had told him that you couldn't do that before getting through certain pleasantries first.

"Yes. We moved here two months ago. The king says I need to stay close to the prince." Castiel looked up through the branches, swaying a little on his feet.

Dean's eyes widened. He would get to spend time with his new friend by decree of the king himself. "That's great!"

By the frown on his serious face, Castiel didn't seem to agree. "I have a duty to uphold the Geas between our families," he said.

"You're a Wizard!" Dean blurted out. His mother had told him that Michael's family would be coming to live at the castle for a while, but he hadn't made the connection to this strange boy.

Castiel blinked at him with guileless blue eyes. "Yes. I will be working closely with Prince Samuel."

Dean's spirit sank a little when he heard his brother's name. But then he remembered that he was owed a blessing as well. "And me!"

The little Wizard frowned at him, cocking his head to one side. "Who are you?"

"I'm Dean!"

"Oh!" It came out as little more than a whisper. Suddenly, the other boy's face went blank and he dropped to his knees. "Your majesty."

"No," Dean said desperately. "Get up. You have to call me Dean."

"But you're the prince," the other boy said, eyes cast down, though he did climb back to his feet.

"We're friends!" He didn't like this new distance that had opened up between them. It seemed vitally important that Castiel treat him like he did before he found out who Dean was.

The Wizard thought about it for a moment. He seemed to think a lot. But when he opened his mouth and said, "Hello, Dean," and it was the greatest thing Dean had heard all day.

The prince grinned so hard his cheeks began to ache. "Hi, Cas."

Age 6

"What are you doing?" Dean asked as he burst into the Roundroom, panting slightly from sprinting up the steps.

The fat rat dropped from Castiel's hands and scurried into the walls. "Practicing," Castiel huffed and squatted down in front of the hole, peering into the darkness.

"Practicing what?" Dean knelt down next to him and tried to see what he saw.

"Magic. Father says I have an affinity for animals, so I should start practicing with them until I am stronger."

Dean wrinkled up his nose. There were so many words he had to learn. He had not even mastered one language when Master Singer was talking about starting him on a second. "Affie-what?"

"Affinity," Castiel said patiently and poked a finger into the hole. "It means my magic has a natural harmony with animals."

"Oh." It was true. Though the rat hid stubbornly in its hole, animals were always acting like they understood what Cas wanted. Dean waited patiently for the rat to reappear, but only for a minute. Even Castiel was frowning in consternation when Dean tugged at his arm for him to stand and follow him down the stairs.

"Come on," Dean said, remembering his original purpose of tracking down the other boy. Dean headed through the door and Castiel followed, partly out of habit and partly out of curiosity. They stopped just outside a small door hidden behind a tapestry and slipped into the hidden corridor. The other end opened up at the back of the dais so the king could slip away in an emergency, but Dean, and by association, Castiel, played here whenever they didn't want to be found.

Dean leaned close to Castiel's ear and cupped a hand conspiratorially around his mouth. "Michael said something to my Father and they made everyone leave the Great Hall."

Castiel's eyes widened as he glanced to the door. "Dean, we shouldn't be here."

"Why not?" Dean demanded as he led them further towards the other end.

Footsteps hurried down the hall and they both stood still, breaths and hands held tight until it was quiet again. Castiel ducked his head and whispered seriously, "Rules exist because bad things happen if you don't follow them."

"Like what?" Dean scoffed. Bad things only happened to bad people. Thieves were imprisoned, murderers hanged, and traitors, though he'd never seen one, were beheaded. Sneaking into the Great Hall hardly deserved a tongue-lashing.

"Like the Mage Wars," Cas said quietly, staring angrily at his own hands fisted in the front of his robe.

"That's silly," Dean scoffed and grabbed his wrist. "You're just sneaking into the Great Hall, not being a Dark Wizard. Come on! We're going to miss it."

Cas wasn't entirely convinced, but curiosity won out and he found himself huddled in the doorway to the Great Hall.

Three boys quivered at the foot of the dais. They were grubby and thin and sharp as stone. Not one of them, not even the youngest, who must have been the same age as the secret boys in the wings, lowered his eyes when the king stood in front of them.

Michael and Raphael stood like dark pillars on either side of the throne in their star-flecked robes.

"Hedgewitches," Michael said, answering some question that Dean was too late to hear.

"I'm not a hedgewitch," the tallest boy sniped. "I'm a Wizard."

Raphael tried to stifle a laugh. He was fourteen, so they let him into these secret meetings, but Dean wouldn't have laughed at all.

"I am," the boy insisted. "My great-great-great-grandfather was Joshua Argenet."

Dean recognized the name, but only vaguely. There was a large green book on the second shelf with the name inscribed in the spine. Bobby never mentioned it during their studies, so he and Cas had taken it down one day to see what was in it. Without even reading a single word, he knew why the book wasn't touched. Joshua was a gardener. The book had nothing but spells and tips for crop cultivation.

"Try one," Dean had told him, but Cas crinkled his brow and shook his head and reached for the next volume on minor illusions, leaving Dean to reshelve Joshua's book on his own.

Cas had that same disappointed frown on his face now, as they watched the tall boy.

"It's my birthright," he insisted, getting angrier with each suppressed snort from Raphael.

"Even if your claim were true, the bloodline only extends one generation away. Otherwise, there would be hundreds of Wizards running around with magic," Raphael scoffed with a smug little smile on his face.

Michael did not look nearly as pleased, but he nodded in agreement. "Even if you believe you have a legitimate claim, the proper procedure is to petition the High Wizard. Access to the castle Sanctuary is strictly forbidden to outsiders."

The boy put on a sneer to match Raphael's. "As if anyone would give me a fair hearing. You're all just―"

One of the younger ones grabbed his arm with terrified urgency, stopping something truly offensive from coming out of his mouth. Dean regarded the silent exchange between the two boys, and knew the younger had won when the taller boy clenched his jaw in silence.

"Our papa is a farmer in Great Bend," the third boy piped up. "The river's dried up and the crops are dying. If we had just a little magic, we could bring back the rain."

Dean had heard people talking about the drought near the southern border, but he hadn't realized what it meant to the people living there.

"He should have asked father," Castiel whispered from next to him. His friend still looked upset, so Dean looped an arm around his shoulders and held him close.

"The drought is unfortunate," his father said, "but grain has been sent from the Northern provinces."

"It's not enough!" the first boy protested, cheeks aflame and eyes ringed with red. "The oxen are dying and we won't have enough seed left to plant next season and you're not helping! Everything around here is green and alive so you don't care―"

"Enough!" John roared and rose to his feet, towering and terrifying. Castiel clutched at Dean's knee, holding them both in place, watching stunned. "You have violated my rule of law, you have trespassed onto forbidden lands, and you have attempted to tamper with the one rule that holds this world in balance. From henceforth, you will be indentured to the Lower Guard and maybe you will learn some discipline."

The youngest boy started crying while the oldest screamed and the third tried to calm them both, even as they were led away.

Dean trembled. It took a lot to make the king lose his composure.

He waited for the door to close behind the Wizards before leaving the safety of his alcove. Castiel grabbed at his arm, trying to stop him, but he shook his friend off. He knew without looking that the Wizard would follow him into the open like his own little protector. They took the long way along the edge of the dais, down the steps, and back around to end up facing his father. The king didn't seem surprised to see Dean, but he lifted an eyebrow at Castiel.

"My Lord," Dean started tentatively.

"Dean," his father sighed.

"When it doesn't rain here for a long time, Michael makes it rain."

John watched, curious as to why his son had chosen this moment to reveal himself.

"Why can't he do that for Great Bend?"

Instead of answering, John turned to the other, silent boy before him. "Do you know why, Castiel?"

Dean frowned and turned to his friend. Castiel had been wilting slowly ever since he was forced out of hiding, but at the curious look, he straightened and took a deep breath. "Yes?" He winced at the uncertainty in his voice. "I do," he tried again.

"Well go on," the King prompted.

"Weather magic takes a lot of time and power," he explained. Even Gabriel couldn't make any real clouds yet, but he didn't add that detail. "In dry climates like Great Bend, the rain would stop as soon as they left, so to have enough rain to grow crops, they need to stay in the area for the entire growing season. The northern regions can grow enough to feed the entire kingdom, so they focus their time there. "

Michael, Raphael, Anna, and even Gabriel were always busy. Cas rarely got to see his father outside of court. When they weren't taking care of one matter or another, they spent their time going all over the world to bring back books and scrolls that might help Sam. The only reason Cas had any time to spend with Dean was because his magic wasn't strong enough yet, and both of them were still learning to read.

Castiel looked at his friend with trepidation, fingers twining together unconsciously. Dean deflated and stood contritely before him and before his father. How could he fault them when they were trying to save Sam?

Later, under the cover of night, Dean snuck out of his bedroom and up the spindly Wizard's Tower. Careful not to wake Gabriel, he tugged Castiel from his bed to sit on the narrow steps outside their chambers.

"Cas, when you're the Royal Wizard," Dean said earnestly, "You have to have a big family, big enough to help everybody."

To the other seven-year-old, this was perfectly sound reasoning. They clasped their hands together in solemn agreement and fell asleep in the stairwell.

Age 8

The skittish black foal stumbled across the stall to bump her nose against the wooden slats.

"Hi!" Dean said and shoved a hand through the planks, but the horse backed away and shrank into the protective hollow of her mother's side before he could touch her coat. The young Prince was crushed. He had waited for his father's mare to foal for nearly a year now. Impala was going to be his first horse. She was sleek, strong, and beautiful, just like his father's horse.

"One day," the king had said when he'd first shown her to Dean, "she will carry you into battle, but more important than that, she'll carry you home."

A year ago, Michael and John had ridden out with two thousand men when the Islands attacked Thousand Port. They returned three months later, tired and tautly strung, but victorious. A prisoner came with them, a boy only a year or two older than Dean.

"Lady Moseley will take him as her ward," John explained. The boy was gone two days later. After that, Dean's routine changed. While Dean used to have lessons with Bobby before noon and the rest of his days free to tag along with Cas' research or play with Sam, he now had to sit through general councils with his father and take up weapons lessons with the armsmaster.

Once Impala could bear his weight, he would have riding lessons as well. Dean didn't mind the work. He liked the tingly, excited feeling he got after lessons with Rufus and he couldn't wait to ride beside his father instead of being stuck sharing a saddle with one of the knights, but he missed his friends and felt useless when it came to helping Sam.

For the last two months, Dean had to climb the Wizard's tower every morning at dawn with a tray laden with food enough for two. Otherwise, Cas would skip breakfast and he wouldn't see his best friend until after well supper when the Wizards would make a report on the day's progress. Even though the older Wizards each had their individual duties to attend to, they found time to research, plan, and procure documents. But Sam was Dean's flesh and blood - and more importantly than that, Sam was Dean's brother. He should be the one pilfering books from the Blue Library or picking the brains of the scholars from the southern coast.

Mary had tried to explain it to him once. "I know you don't think you're doing enough for your brother, but what you do is just as important as anything Anna or Raphael has done."

"How?"

"Look there." Mary drew Dean close and pointed at a lone ant that was tentatively circling a lost bread crumb sitting on the window sill. "Do you see that ant?"

Dean nodded and moved to flick it out of the window before his mother stopped him.

"That ant," Mary said firmly, holding Dean's hand, "is just one of hundreds of ants living in its colony. Its job is to go out into the world and find food. There are drone ants whose job it is to make new baby ants. There are soldier ants that give their lives fighting off bigger, stronger insects. And there is a queen who is the very heart of the colony. Which do you think is the most important?"

Dean wrinkled his nose and thought what his mother would want him to answer. His first impulse was to indicate the Queen. After all, he and Sammy and the King all loved Mary the most, but this was a lesson which usually meant there was a moral at the end of the story. "All of them?" he guessed.

"Why?" she said gently.

"The soldiers because they defend the kingdom and make sure everyone's safe. The workers because they find the food so no one goes hungry. The drones because they keep the kingdom going after the old ants have died. And the queen because there wouldn't be a colony without her," he rattled off.

"Hm," she said and seemed to give it some thought. "That seems about right. Now what about in our kingdom? Whose job is the most important? The king? The queen?" She pointed at herself with a raised eyebrow and a slight smile that made Dean laugh. "The Wizards?" She paused and Dean bit his lip. He wanted to blurt out yes, that they were doing everything, but he was starting to understand what his mother was trying to tell him. "Or my big, strong Bear?" At the use of his childhood nickname, she dug her fingers into his ribs until he was shrieking with laughter, any trepidation forgotten in the sensation and the joy of his mother's glowing presence.

After he'd exhausted his lungs and collapsed in his mother's arms like a baby, he calmed and started to think. The initial worry wormed its way back into his thoughts. It was true that he didn't do anything. He was getting ready to be king, which needed a little bit of every ant. The king made sure everyone was safe, no one went hungry, and held all the lords together as one. But Dean wasn't king yet. John was. Dean didn't want to have to wait countless years before he could help.

Mary seemed to sense the disquiet in her son because she hauled him into her lap and wrapped her arms around his waist even though he was far too old to be coddled like this. "What's going on in your head?" she said.

"I want to do more," Dean admitted quietly.

She sighed over the top of his head. "Then you shall."

Dean started in surprise and twisted to look his mother in the face. She smiled down at him like an angel with her golden hair framed in sunlight from the open window. He found himself smiling back, misery lightened by her very presence.

"You're going to have two new jobs. First, I'm going to speak with Master Singer and have him work with Michael or Raphael to devise lessons on magic history and theory."

Dean groaned. More useless lessons were hardly what he'd count as important work.

"You said you wanted to help Sam and you can't help him if you don't understand what the problem is in the first place."

Dean nodded grudgingly then asked, "And what's my second job?"

"Your second job is to make sure Castiel doesn't go gray by the time he's eleven."

It was scary how easy it was to imagine Cas bent over and wrinkled by his next birthday. More than once he'd heard Lady Missouri sigh and call Cas an "old soul." Dean didn't know much about souls, but he knew that Cas acted like he was older than his father sometimes.

"I swear if that boy still had his mother..." Mary sighed and shook her head before fixing Dean with a serious stare. "Now I know Anna tries her best to get him to eat and sleep, but it'll be your job to make sure he has some time to relax as well, that he doesn't bury himself so deep in those books that he forgets what the rest of the world looks like."

"I will," Dean agreed quickly. "I can do that."

The next day, Dean excused himself early from dinner and ran up the Wizard's Tower for the second time that day. He had a job to do and he wasn't waiting another moment to do it. When Dean said, "Come on! I want to show you something," he was fully prepared to pick up the Wizard and carry him down the steps if he had to. Luckily, Cas just gave him a curious look, placed a marker in the big tome at his feet, snuffed out the smelly candles burning around the circle drawn on the floor, tucked some pouches into his sleeves, and followed him down the stairs.

"Oh," Cas breathed and hung between two of the posts. "She's beautiful."

Dean beamed proudly at the filly in the training field from his spot standing atop the second beam. "She is! She doesn't like me though."

"Really?" Cas said and looked offended on Dean's behalf.

"Come up," Dean said and tugged on the collar of Cas' robe until the Wizard climbed up next to him. "Watch."

Dean whistled and called Impala's name and every other trick he'd learned from the stable boys, but the most he got from the horse was a flick of her tale in his general direction. "See?"

Castiel frowned, nose wrinkling up before he said solemnly, "You're doing it wrong. Let me try."

He scrunched up his entire face in concentration and Dean waited, enraptured, waiting to see what would happen.

"Come here, Impala," Cas commanded lowly.

"She didn't even hear you," Dean started to say, but silenced himself as the filly's ears perked up and she swung her head slowly towards them. His breath caught in his chest as he watched in amazement as the horse trotted straight at them and proceeded to stick her nose right in Castiel's outstretched hand.

"You used magic!" Dean said, half accusatory, half impressed.

"Yes," Cas nodded. "It's an ancient Wizards' secret, passed down from generation to generation. I can show you if you want."

"I can't do magic," Dean grumbled, and sulkily dropped his chin to the top rung of the fence, refusing to look at his friend or his traitorous horse.

"You can do this one," Cas said, touching Dean on the shoulder to get his attention back. "I promise."

Dean grudgingly turned his head to look as Cas reached slowly into his sleeve, took a deep breath, zeroing his gaze at Dean's eyes, and drew out an apple. Impala immediately bit into the fruit and pranced away with her prize between her teeth, tail swaying high in the wind.

Cas smiled sheepishly up at Dean who couldn't decide whether to laugh or feel cheated. In the end, he settled on a third option. "That was your apple! You were supposed to eat that for breakfast!"

"I know," Cas admitted. "But Anna brings me breakfast most mornings, too, so I have enough to eat."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Dean asked, a little hurt that Cas had been keeping a secret.

Cas shrugged and stuck his legs through the next beam up, swinging them loosely as he sagged into the seat. "I didn't want you to stop coming." He looked down at the ground and mumbled, "I would miss you."

"Well," Dean said gruffly. "I guess I'd miss you too."

Cas looked up with wide eyes. "You're not mad?"

"You still should have told me," Dean shot back with a forced frown on his face. "I could have been eating twice as much breakfast all this time."

Cas grinned his biggest smile, the one that Dean considered ihis/i smile, reserved for best friends only. "I wouldn't want you to get too fat to sit on your new horse."

"Says the one who's been eating two breakfasts every morning," Dean accused shrilly.

"I have not. Gabriel usually eats it."

"Oh," Dean considered, thinking of the other Wizard's chubby cheeks and perpetually sticky fingers. "That explains a lot."

"Will you keep coming?" Cas asked after a while.

"Yes," Dean said and clambered onto the beam next to the Wizard, pressing their shoulders together. "It's my job."

Age 10

Sam was six when they found the old abandoned mill. It was at the edge of the capital, far beyond the walls that held the city proper. Its broken waterwheel sat crookedly in the jagged scar of land that once held a flowing stream.

They weren't supposed to be there, of course. Cas should be studying Sam's curse, which meant holding his hands and trying to feel out the shape of the Mark inside him. That was exactly what they had been doing when Dean had showed up on his filly. It was the first day that the horsemaster had let him ride Impala out of the yard and his first stop was the stoop outside the Wizard's tower. Sam fell in love with the horse in the same way he loved anything new. Cas wasn't as enthusiastic, but it had been days since he'd been able to drag Cas away from his books, and there was nothing to do but ride out the back gate with Sam at the front, clinging to the pommel, and Castiel in the back clinging to Dean.

Dean, however, was ecstatic. Cas just didn't know how wonderful it was to ride a horse, the freedom of wind blowing through his hair, the ability to go anywhere, anytime. One day he'd learn to zap place to place like his siblings could, but for now he was just as land-bound as the rest of them.

And how could he leave Sam cooped up in the castle when he was out riding through the countryside?

Dean laughed as Castiel's grip on his ribs tightened when he pushed Impala into a full gallop. Sam was squealing with glee, his laughs coming in bursts as the horse came crashing down with each step. Still, he made sure to keep his elbows around his brother's waist in case his little hands came off the pommel.

Sam's hair was all over his face, tickling his nose and making his eyes water, and Cas' bony chin was digging painfully into the back of his shoulder, but there, on that horse, was one of the happiest moments of his life.

They rode for an hour through the woods outside the sprawling town that had grown around the capital walls before Sam grew tired and they headed back. Dean decided to take a new route, for a little more excitement, and they'd ended up coming out of the forest at the old mill.

"Hey, let's go in. Impala could use a break," Dean suggested, sliding out from between the other two boys. Castiel half-slid, half-fell out of the saddle while Dean lifted his arms to help Sam off.

"It might not be safe," Cas said as he eyed the structure dubiously.

The worn wooden beams and the flaking paint didn't inspire much confidence.

"Sammy, you keep an eye on Impala. I'll go check it out," Dean said, leaving his brother to play with the filly's waving tail.

"Dean!" Castiel called after him but Dean was already leaping across the abandoned wheelbarrow that lay out front and reaching for the door.

A layer of fine dust rose up to clog his lungs as he walked in, but once his coughing fit passed, he looked around and gaped in wonder. Someone had painted an entire wall with images of dragons and unicorns and angels, all manner of magical creatures. It reminded Dean of the fairy tale books that littered Sam's old nursery, except all the creatures were together like all the stories clashed together into one magnificent world.

"Sam! Cas! You have to see this!" he yelled through the open doorway.

When they came in, Sam clinging to Cas' hand, even the somber little Wizard seemed in awe. "It's beautiful," he breathed, coughing slightly at the dust. Sam, however, seemed more interested in clambering over the great grinding stone and machinery that was still attached to the ruined waterwheel.

Dean wouldn't say it, because only girls found things beautiful, but silently, he sort of agreed.

Age 11

A light bobbed through the darkness. It floated, green and ethereal like stories of will-o'-the-wisps, but Dean wasn't standing in the midst of a foggy wood. He was indoors, halfway down the western corridor where tapestries covered the windows and the torches were unlit.

"Dean!" Castiel's voice called excitedly. His round face emerged into the eerie glow of the sphere.

"What is that?" Dean demanded as he drifted closer, transfixed by the green light.

"It's a mage light," Castiel said. "You can touch it."

The light tingled when Dean swiped his fingers through the edges and if he thrust his hand into the center, it felt like a thousand firebugs were crawling over his skin. He laughed and waved his hand through its center, watching the glow creep along his fingers until it reached his knuckles.

"You made this?" Dean asked, grinning up at his friend.

"Yes," Castiel whispered proudly.

"You should make one in Sammy's room. He doesn't like the candles very much and Isaac always has to get him the sweet wood to burn in the fireplace."

Castiel's face fell. "Oh. I can't leave it somewhere. I have to be there to keep it going."

"That's still really amazing!" Dean amended hastily. "We can sneak out into the woods and scare Rufus when he's out hunting!"

"Dean," Castiel chastised. "He'll shoot us."

Dean chewed on his lip, thinking of ways to get around that snag in his plans. "Maybe we should do it to Gabriel instead."

"Gabriel can make ten mage lights at once!"

"Wow," Dean's eyes widened.

"And he can make it look like a real fire. He was going to pretend the kitchen was on fire."

"But the kitchen was on fire!" Dean scowled.

"Yes," Cas ducked his head and the mage light disappeared when he dropped his hands. "But that wasn't Gabriel."

They both stood quietly in the dark, waiting for their eyes to adjust. The fire had killed one of the kitchen boys and two dogs. Dean hadn't been there, but Cas had seen the boy when Raphael tried to tend to his wounds. A loud snuffle ripped through the air.

"Cas?" Dean whispered, feeling out to clutch onto his friend's sleeve.

"I'm fine," Cas whispered back.

"Come on," Dean prodded the Wizard in the side. "Let's go show Sam."

"Yes," Cas said, but Dean knew he was still upset.

"And then we can all go scare Bobby," he decided. That should cheer them all up.

Age 13

Dean knew this day would come, but it hadn't for so long that he'd almost forgotten. There was always another normal week, another normal day, another normal hour when a nameless messenger popped his bubble.

Lucifer had been spotted crossing the Narrow Strait back to the continent. The three days it took to make final arrangements had a facade of normalcy. Dean woke at the same time, would begin lessons at the same time, would eat at the same time. Yet it felt like time had lost its bearing. The minutes would drag on and on then catch up all at once.

In one fell swoop, he was going to lose his mother, his brother, and his best friend. They were leaving in less than a day with Michael, Anna, and Gabriel. All the Wizards had become a constant presence in his life. Not just Cas, who had insinuated himself into Dean's very perception of reality, but Anna with her steady hand and ferocious temper, Gabriel with his ability to take even the darkest fears and turn them into light and laughter. Raphael would be the only one to stay behind: the interim Royal Wizard at only twenty-two.

On the last day, Dean couldn't focus on a single thing past the giddy hope that had been building in his head as he schemed through the night. Rufus had him on his backside for the twentieth time that day before he'd thrown down his sword and dismissed the prince in disgust. Dean didn't bother changing or even taking off his leather padding before he ran through the Wizard's great room and straight through Castiel's door.

"You know how to teleport!" he said triumphantly, out of breath after running up the spiral steps.

Castiel startled, his clothing half-packed into his lone pack. "Yes," he said and narrowed his eyes. "Gabriel told you." At thirteen, he was just as serious as his father, burdened since the age of four with the salvation of the youngest prince.

"Yes, Gabriel had to tell me!" Dean was pissed. "You can visit! You can bring Sam! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you would ask me to do this," Castiel returned to packing, far too calm for Dean's level of agitation. "It would not be safe for Sam to return."

"You don't have to bring him here. You can take him to the old mill and no one would have to know." The abandoned mill was their secret spot away from everything, where courtiers and tutors and parents couldn't find them.

"Dean, you don't think Lucifer will have the entire capital watched, just waiting for Sam to become homesick or for you to become nostalgic? It isn't safe!" Castiel fixed him with that terrible glare, unmitigated by his otherwise childish face.

"Then we'll go outside the capital. You can put up wards in the forest. And the wolves can sniff out any danger, right?"

Castiel set down the stockings he had been folding and took two steps towards Dean until they would be practically nose to nose if Cas were taller. Dean could see every wrinkle in his eyelids as the shorter boy squinted up at him. "Do you truly think that if there was a way for Sam to be near his home, my father, my brothers and my sister, your parents, none of them would have tried it? You're being needlessly reckless."

"Needlessly―" Dean blustered. "Do you even care that we're never going to see each other again?"

Castiel's eyes shuttered immediately, expression going carefully blank. "We will see each other once a year as you well know. Raphael will bring you and your father to our location on Sam's birthday. And we will be back once the curse is broken."

Dean's heart sank. He hadn't meant to hurt Cas, to imply that he would never find a way to undo Lucifer's mark. Still, it could take years. Cas was nowhere near as strong as his uncle and had just starting to master intermediate level magic. Once a year, one day out of three hundred and sixty-five was a pittance when compared to seeing each other every day. It was a drought after eight years of torrential rains. "That's not enough," Dean argued. "How can you say that's enough? Do you even care?"

He didn't expect tears, nor did he expect rage. Castiel was always calmer, quieter, but still Dean didn't expect his best friend who he wasn't going to see again for a long, long time to act like nothing was wrong and pick up his ugly gray stockings and start to fold them again. "When I break the curse," Castiel said tersely, "we can all come back. Then, we can go anywhere we want. The faster that happens, the better. I'm happy we're leaving. I'll be able to focus, to concentrate on making it all better."

Something snapped inside Dean and he felt everything at once as all the emotions that Cas seemed to lack flooded into him. He was angry and miserable and devastated and had to turn away before Cas could see the tears in his eyes. If Cas didn't care, then Dean wouldn't either. Besides, he still had his brother and mother to worry about. He didn't need to miss anyone else, especially someone who wouldn't miss him.

Without glancing back, Dean fled the room to find Sam. He had one last day and he wasn't wasting it on some ungrateful Wizard.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Age 18

For the first time that he could remember, Dean felt hesitation as he headed west. The past year had been an endless ouroboros of hope and expectation, anxiety and fear. When he'd found the Cain book, he'd been so sure that the answer to their struggles had found its way into his hand, but now all he could think was that was not enough. Every day he would steel himself before meeting Raphael at council. If there was a message for him, for them, it could be news of a breakthrough, tidings of joy, or it could be a dire report of a man, of Cas, gone and disappeared into madness of power. Day after day, nothing had come, until the lone missive of a location for their next meeting.

The sun was nearing the tree line by the time Dean left the straw hut and its festivities. He told himself he was staying for Sam, that it had been a year since he'd last seen his brother. Sam had grown like ivy, gangly and fast, shooting up to Dean's chin. He'd grown in other ways, too, arguing with their father until the explosive fallout sent the teenager storming out in a fit, taking with him Dean's excuse for staying put.

"I'd heard that boys tend to grow away from their mothers as they get older," Mary said with a gentle smile. "But it seems I have one boy that can't leave and another who's retreated behind my skirts."

Dean flushed and fiddled with belt, trying to tamp down on the sense of panic that seized him at being caught out. There was nothing to be ashamed of. Friends grew apart. Certainly he had many a companion who had disappeared with the changing of each season. It meant nothing that he'd spent nearly every day of the past year with his heart in his throat at the very thought of Cas, and the past month preparing for this visit had rendered him inattentive and irritable. "I hardly see you or your skirts. Perhaps I'm reacquainting them to memory in case I forget."

Mary lifted an eyebrow and patted the seat next to her. "Why are you really still here?"

Dean's breath caught as he sank down into the crude wooden seat. "The last time I was here," he started, voice low and gruff, "Cas was, well, you probably have a better idea than I do. Something broke inside him."

His mother turned sad eyes towards the sun peeking through the western window, but the smile that stayed on her lips kept Dean's blood from running cold. "Yes, it is difficult out here for all of us. Even prisoners rarely see such cruelty as isolation. It is a burden for an old woman like myself―"

"You're hardly old," Dean snorted, but Mary dismissed the sentiment with a shake of her head.

"It's even worse for the children. This is when you learn how to interact with the world, and all Sam, Castiel, Gabriel, and even Anna have is their family. Everyone reacts differently. Sam has his idealism, which is in its own way a sort of denial that life could be better than the travelling the world with his mother and his best friend."

Dean grimaced at the thought that Sam had Gabriel as his best friend, of all people.

"Castiel has his mission. He lets it consume him until he forgets that there's life outside the hole he has dug himself. Then you come along, once a year, a breath of fresh air at the back of that musty cave and you remind him of everything that he can't have."

"Are you―" Dean swallowed and clenched his eyes shut. "Are you saying I shouldn't go see him?" And the thought of that, of severing himself from Cas, of being so close and not seeing him was almost enough to tear him away from his mother's side and send him running to the west.

"I would never suggest that," Mary said firmly and Dean peered up at her face, golden and bright in the sun. "I mean that you shouldn't be so hard on him. No matter what you think, Castiel isn't perfect."

"I don't think he's perfect," Dean objected, a little too quickly.

"Of course not," Mary said with a light laugh. "He made a mistake and now you're afraid of losing him, but you haven't, Dean, not if you don't want to."

Dean headed west, with his mother's kiss still lingering on his cheek, her words echoing in his ear keeping him moving forward rather than turning back. Running away. Dean clenched his fists. There was nothing to fear here, not like there was at the end of a sword or in the maw of a beast. If nothing else, he had his trust in his mother and, he tried to remember, his faith in Cas.

After he'd walked for nearly a candle mark, he was stunned to hear a familiar whistle and the responding twitter of birdsong. The tall grass parted and he was standing on the end of a shabby old dock. An old boat, sunken and half-rotted, was moored to the broken bollards on his left. And at the other end, legs dangling into the still water, sat Castiel.

His robe was on this time, Dean noticed, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Robins with red breasts and gray wings hopped about on the planks around his fingers, and swooped lazily through the air. There were even a few brown ducks paddling near his ankles, listening to the reedy lilts of Castiel's song and nibbling at his toes.

Even from the back, Dean could see that Cas had changed. He was taller and broader, but there was something else, not necessarily something new, but something lost that was found again in the careless slump of his shoulders contrasted against the rigidity of his spine.

"Cas?" he asked, tentative as he stepped onto the worn wooden planks.

The whistling stopped and Castiel turned his head slowly. For a split second, Castiel smiled without reservation, grin spilling from his lips and making him glow in the sunlight. Dean's breath caught in his throat and a year's worth of tension drained from his shoulders. Then the smile flared away, dimming into a small self-conscious flash of teeth, like Cas was laughing at his own joke. His head dipped, and Dean could barely make out the glimpse of blue from under his lashes.

And entirely new ache filled Dean's chest as his feet started moving forward without his say. Without saying another word, he dropped down on the planks next to Castiel and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. It was awkward and uncomfortable until Cas turned into him, tucking his face against Dean's neck, arms coming up to circle Dean's waist. Then it was perfect and warm and the Wizard's robe slipped like silk between the fingers he had bunched up over Cas' shoulder blades.

This time he had his Cas back, the one who made the whole world look shiny and new.

"Hello, Dean," Castiel said against his ear, and a shiver ran through him. It made his knees shake. It was too much. He turned his head so that his ear was further from Castiel's dangerous lips and his own nose was buried in Cas' hair. The Wizard smelled like sunshine and water and cloves.

"Hey, Cas," he said to the back of Cas' head. He indulged himself in one last squeeze before letting go. Still, when he sat down, their shoulders and hips were pressed flush together. He had to reassure himself that Cas was right there with him, that he was solid again, unmovable, a rock. Cas leaned into his side and that was even better.

The lake was much smaller than the ocean, perhaps even smaller than the fishing pond just south of the mill. But the water was a clear blue, reflecting the sunlight and clouds in the sky, and that made it more beautiful than the sea ever could be.

"So you managed to crawl your way out of your books," Dean said lightly, all the questions and accusations bleeding out from the soles of his feet and into the cool water to be swept away by the lapping waves.

"Yes," Castiel replied, eyeing him serenely. "You were worried."

Dean sagged, dropping his head onto Cas' shoulders and huffing out a breath of laughter. "Yeah, Cas."

Castiel stared down at him from the corner of his eyes like he did when he wasn't quite sure what a joke was about. After a moment he nodded and went back to looking out over the water.

"I have found a possible solution to our problem," Castiel told him and squinted against the sunlight. Dean's head shot up, because this was a big moment and Cas shouldn't be telling him that with a grumpy pout on his face. Elation, disbelief, trepidation, and relief run through his mind, leaving him in a surreal haze.

"There's a catch," Dean guessed.

"It's not ready yet," Castiel groused, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth, making it shiny and red. "I wanted to have something to show you when you visited today, but all I have are a bunch of calculations that don't mean anything yet, but I am certain I am on the right path. I am sorry that I have no substantial proof. You shouldn't have your hopes raised―"

But it was far too late for that. Already Dean had jumped to his feet, grinning so hard his cheeks ached. The only thing that kept him from shouting and dancing a jig right here on the dock was the startled look Cas gave him. Only Cas would expect disappointment and chastisement when all Dean wanted to do was share his joy and gratitude and pride.

He didn't even think before he leaned down and tilted Cas' face up to meet his. The kiss was soft and short, just a gentle brushing of lips that lasted as long as it took for the grin to take over Dean's face once again. When he pulled back, Cas was beet red and out of breath even though they'd done nothing more than touch for a second.

"Dean, what―" Cas started before his tongue stopped working, leaving him gaping like a fish.

He laughed as he sank back down onto the planks, noting with mirth that Cas' wide eyes never once left his face.

"I want to add this place to the list," Dean proclaimed, plunking his feet into the cool water and scattering the ducks, ignoring the obvious question that hung between them. He didn't want to talk about the kiss. He just wanted to bask in the aftermath, to preserve this moment forever in time. "We'll come back," he continued, "And build a big manor right there, like the summer home we have in Harvelle."

He slung an arm around Cas' shoulder, turning him towards the length of dry shore on the south side. Already he was picturing the dock fixed, the water teeming with hickory shad and rainbow trout, fresh fish at the supper table. He pressed Cas against his side, like if they were close enough, they could share the image, and the Wizard came easily.

"Yes, this would be a good place," Cas confirmed and shot Dean a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Perhaps you should tell Gabriel about the list," Cas continued and pulled away. The Wizard tucked his feet onto the edge of the dock and rested his chin on his knees.

Dean frowned, all the ease from before turning into an itch under his skin he couldn't scratch. "Why would I do that?"

"You two share a certain brashness and you would certainly appreciate his sense of humor. If you spent more time together, I'm sure you would get along very well."

Dean shifted anxiously. Cas had been comfortable and close, so now Dean didn't understand why he was pushing him away. "I don't want to," he said petulantly. Gabriel was abrasive and loud, but he was more interesting than a lot of the dung-heads at court. Still, Dean never found him as fascinating and captivating as his brother. There was something about Castiel that was implacable and calm, even when he was laughing or angry or sad. Gabriel was spark and spectacle, but Cas was a gentle mage light tucked under his skin and Dean never quite grew tired of looking for its glow. If he said that out loud, Cas would think he'd gone soft in the head. "I like you better," he said instead. "You're my best friend."

He watched Cas' face intently, hoping for a quirk of his lips, a genuine smile. It wasn't there. Instead, Cas looked helpless and resigned as he repeated Dean's words. "I'm your best friend."

"Of course," Dean insisted, thinking that maybe Castiel didn't believe him. He couldn't think of any other reason why Cas looked like he was headed for the hangman's noose. This was supposed to be a celebration. It had been a celebration and Dean couldn't tell where it had gone wrong.

"Is that why you kissed me?" Cas asked, turning his head in his arms so his eyes could bore into Dean's. Dean swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. That wasn't why. He could lie, but Cas had always been able to see right through him.

The real reason was that he spent the past year more worried about Cas than he was about Sam. The thought of his brother dying was terrifying but distant - Lucifer was more myth than man by this point - but he had been so close to losing Castiel. He feared that the next time he looked into those blue eyes, he wouldn't recognize him anymore, that all of Castiel's inherent grace and compassion would be stripped away by hatred and desperation. He realized that he didn't just need Cas to save Sam. He needed Cas to be safe and happy. When Cas told him he had found a cure, Dean realized he wanted Cas to be safe and happy and there with him. He wanted to see that smile every day. He wanted to feel it against his skin, to press it into his flesh and wear it like a badge. Even now he could feel it tingling against his lips.

Dean could talk a man out of his house, a merchant out of his profit, a kingdom out of a war, but he couldn't find the words to let Castiel know everything he was to him. "No," he managed. "I kissed you because I wanted to."

And it was that simple.

Age 19

It was good news. It was fantastic news. Sam wasn't going to die. Cas had figured out some sort of dissipation trick from the notes in Cain's book. Should Lucifer cast the second Mark, it wouldn't kill Sam. Instead, it would diffuse into the area around him, putting everyone there to sleep. Sam would be forced unconscious, and they had yet to find a definitive way to wake him, but at least he wouldn't be dead.

And if Lucifer was close enough, he'd be knocked out as well.

Dean chewed on his lip and shifted on his feet, antsy in his ability to do anything but wait. His father was a statue beside him, eyes fixed intently on the ring of Wizards gathered around Sam. Michael, Raphael, Anna, and Gabriel stood at cardinal corners as they worked the new spell. Cas was the only one missing, too sick and sensitive to light to emerge from the back room of the cabin.

The spell wasn't that impressive for how powerful it was supposed to be. There were no flashing lights, no sound of crackling, no static in the air. The only indication that magic was present in the room was the scent of the burning herbs and the low chant of voices that sounded more like gargling water than any human language.

"You doing good, Sammy?" he asked when it was all over.

"Yes," his brother replied, sounding completely unfazed, like nothing had changed. That seemed wrong to Dean, somehow, but his brother was safe, so who was he to complain?

"You sure the spell didn't turn you into a girl?" Dean teased. At Sam's scowl he added, "I mean more of a girl."

"You are such a pig!" Sam said, shoving his brother who returned with a headlock and cuff. It was good. He didn't get to do this often enough. At fifteen, Sam was getting tall, almost as tall as he was although he was still a mess of spindly limbs. It made him feel slightly better when he invariably won their wrestling matches.

"Dean," his father's voice cut into their brotherly play-fighting. "We're leaving."

"Aw," Sam whined and turned big sad eyes on their father. It didn't work. Nothing really worked on John Winchester. Dean pulled his brother up off the ground and dusted himself off.

"I'm going to go say bye to Cas. He's going to be so pissed if he finds out we were here and I didn't even bother to see his sickly face."

He headed to the door that lead to the back, but before he was even halfway there, Gabriel intercepted him, placing himself between the prince and the door.

"Sorry, Dean. He can't see anyone right now."

"Oh come off it, Gabe. I promise I won't catch his vapors."

Normally this would be where Gabe would tease him about wanting to get more than Cas' cooties, but this time the short little wizard stayed serious, showing the rare side of him that was obviously molded by his father. "No can do, Dean-o. Not this time."

"Let me through, you little twat." This was starting to scare him, and when Dean was scared, he got pissed. He placed both hands on the Wizard's shoulders and shoved, except the man didn't move an inch. The little rascal was using his magic on him. "Get out of my way!"

"Dean," Michael growled in warning.

"You need to tell me what's wrong with Cas. Why can't I see him? And don't give me that light-sensitive heap of lies!" Dean yelled at the Wizards.

"Please, Michael. I'm sure Castiel can handle just a few minutes," Mary mediated calmly, placing a restraining hand on her eldest son's arm.

"I'm sorry, Mary. It would not be safe for either of them. Castiel is very ill," Michael said, surprisingly gentle though Dean could see his finger tapping against his robes. For him that was incredibly agitated.

Dean was about to demand entrance again when Sam intervened. "Dean, I'll tell him you came by. I can give him a message if you want?"

"I don't want to leave a message. I want to know what's going on!"

"Dean Winchester," his father's voice boomed through the room, and Dean was instantly mollified. "We are leaving."

Dean gave his mother a quick peck on the cheek and thumped a hand against Sam's back. "See you on your next birthday, kid. What're you turning, ten?"

"Sixteen, you pig!"

Dean smiled and murmured, "Chicken."

He shot the backroom a final look before Raphael took his hand and the walls shifted from the rough logs of the cabin to the cut stone of the castle.

Age 20

Dean pushed out of the crowd and up the stairs, collapsing against his door in a drunken buzz. Benny had sent Theresa or Tanya or Tiffany, something with a T, up to his room ten minutes ago, then told Dean not to keep her waiting. It seemed everyone was willing to indulge the crown prince on his twentieth birthday.

In truth, he just wanted someone to take the loneliness away. Somehow, he'd come to rely on Sam's birthday to bolster him through the rest of the year, but last April, there'd been rioting West of the Narrow Strait that threatened to spill over into Winchester lands. They'd only managed to take enough time for Raphael to complete the spell with the other Wizards before they came straight home. Dean had gotten to speak with his brother for less than an hour and hadn't seen Cas at all. More than anything he missed them and their absence burned a hole through his heart.

The girls helped, if only for an evening or two every so often. He expected Tina to be only a brief reprieve, but it was his birthday, so he might as well try. What he wasn't expecting was for her to be joined by a man, an angry dark-haired man with stormy blue eyes who was tucking the unconscious girl into Dean's four-poster bed.

Dean's downstairs brain hadn't registered the change, or maybe it just didn't care, but his big boy brain was still lucid enough to feel shame and a tinge of fear. Cas could be terrifying when he wanted to be.

"Cas! What are you doing here?"

"You invite me to your birthday every year," Castiel replied calmly, though Dean could see the accusation in his eyes.

"Sure," he shot back, "and you never come." The first flickers of anger had the bonus side effect of sobering him up a little, enough to process the resigned tilt downwards of the Wizard's shoulders.

"I should not have this year either," Castiel sighed and rummaged inside the sleeve of his robes. He produced a small brown package and strode over to Dean. "Happy birthday," he said, placing the gift in the prince's limp hand. "This is from Sam."

"Wait," Dean shot out his other hand to grasp his friend's arm, preventing him from moving, preventing him from ileaving/i. He plastered a cocky grin onto his face, the same one that had convinced Tara to join him for this evening's festivities. "What, you didn't get me anything?"

Castiel bristled with fury. Dean could have sworn that he was using his powers, somehow, to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "I have far more important things to do than procure trinkets for your debauched amusement."

For some reason, the shivers that ran up Dean's spine were far too pleasant to be from terror. He was undeterred, boosted by the alcohol coursing through his veins. "I'm not interested in trinkets. In fact, I think you did get me a present."

The look of confusion Castiel shot him was adorable. Dean almost regretted having to wipe it off his face. A sharp tug was all it took to get Cas pressed up against his chest. Once there, it was easy to lean down and press their lips together.

Castiel went as rigid as a board, but only for a moment before he grabbed onto Dean's shoulders and was kissing him back with the same subdued fire that he always held within him.

It was nothing like the first time they kissed. After that first moment of hesitation, Cas moved with purpose, a slow methodical glide of lips that had Dean wondering where he learned it, who he learned it from. He wanted to wipe them from Cas' mind, to replace all those memories with new ones of Dean. He caught Cas' bottom lip between his teeth, sucking it into his mouth. Cas' moan gave him the opportunity to dip his tongue into his heat, to really taste him for the first time. His hands had snaked into Cas' hair, clenched in those curls that he'd touched in his dreams. Cas was like a fine wine, delicious and heady and leaving Dean craving more.

By the time they parted, they were both spit-slick and out of breath. A beautiful flush had settled high in Cas' cheeks and his eyes shone liquid and dark, luring Dean forward again, but this before he could touch him, Castiel placed a steady palm against his chest.

"Dean, I can't do this. I'm sorry," he whispered, not looking the prince in his eyes. In the next moment, Dean was left holding a brown package in one hand and empty air in the next.

The sleeping girl in his bed let out a quiet snort.

All he could do was slump down into the armchair by the window, lean his head back, and murmur, "Ass."

Tessa sat up and regards him with bleary brown eyes. "Someone was here, waiting for you," she slurred out.

His laugh was short and bitter. "Not anymore."

Age 20 - 3 months later

It figured that they'd choose a place where the very weather would fight against his quest to apologize and fix things. Wind whipped the fallen snow off the ground and into his face, loose fluffy flakes soaking blurring his vision and creating a sheen of frost on his scarf.

Castiel always took the post to the west, because the sun would set on him last, so Dean headed west. Except when he found a Wizard, it was the wrong one.

"Hello, Dean-o."

"Gabriel."

"So what did you do to Cassie to get his panties all in a bunch?"

"None of your business. Where's Cas?"

"He took east watch this time. Wouldn't tell me why but from the look on your face, I'd say it's because you screwed up somehow."

"Troll's teeth." East watch meant that Cas was at least two leagues away. It'd take him at least two hours to fight his way back through the snow. As he turned towards the east, Gabriel called out to him again.

"Dean, believe it or not, I want the best for my brother."

That got his attention. "What?" Gabriel was a complete dick to, well, everyone. While his brothers had emulated their father's gravitas, Gabriel seemed to have launched himself in the opposite direction, constantly joking, lying, and playing pranks on his siblings.

"Geez, I've been watching you two dance around each other since you were babies. I was jealous at first, you know? When you pick Michael's successor, there really wasn't going to be any competition. But then I realized that wasn't the reason you would want Castiel at court."

"What are you talking about, Gabriel?"

The shorter man rolled his eyes and manifested an armchair in the middle of the clearing. He plopped down into the giant cushions before explaining. "You get to see your brother and mother for one day every year, and yet every year, you spend at least two or three hours with imy/i brother."

"He's my best friend."

"He is not your best friend."

"What? Of course he is!"

"Dean, he was your best friend until you were thirteen. But then we left. You aren't best friends with someone you only talk to once a year."

"What could you know about me and Cas?"

"More than you know about him or he knows about you," Gabriel shot back, eyes blazing from beneath the ruff of his hood. "Face it, Dean. You don't know that the only way to get Cas up before sunrise is to ply him with coffee. You don't know that he always picks the chair closest to the door. You don't know that he actually likes dancing, not the stiff court dances, but the flowing forms of the Red Desert. You don't know that he favors his left hand because a Gate Shaman told him it would bring him luck. And I know you're too dense to fess up to what you want unless you're drunk."

Suddenly the woolen layers seemed to do nothing to protect him from the chill. "He told you."

"Of course he told me. Guess what, Dean? It's just the six of us out here and my brother is my best friend too."

"Then what in the king's name was that about?"

"I wanted to see if you'd have the mettle to tell me yourself. Looks like you don't."

"I hope trolls chew off your toes!" He turned to leave.

"Dean," Gabriel lost the smirk in his voice. "Don't."

"Don't what?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Don't go and make whatever grand romantic gesture you have planned. Just leave him alone. It's hard enough for him without you playing with his affections. And if you can't even handle telling his brother you'd kissed him, you can't handle what's coming."

"What's coming? What affections? Gabriel, what aren't you telling me?" he narrowed his eyes and took a step towards the Wizard. "Does this have to do with Sam? With Cas' blessing?"

Gabriel heaved a deep sigh and said with a mocking lilt, "Of course not. This has to do with Castiel. Just leave it. Go back to your castle. Go back to Tessa and every other girl that's waiting for you in your bed. What were their names again? Lisa, Lydia, Jamie."

Dean winced with each name that came out of Gabriel's mouth. He hadn't realized Cas would tell his brother. But it was just the four Wizards, his mother and Sam. Who else would Cas have to talk to the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year?

"Oh, and my favorite: Cassandra. You called her Cassie, didn't you? Hilarious, isn't it?" Except there wasn't a trace of humor in Gabriel's face.

"I can't believe he told you about all of them. That was private," he couldn't help muttering.

"Who did you think would be the one to put him back together every time?"

"He pushed me away!" Dean blurted out.

"For your own good," Gabriel's eyes glinted like polished steel in the harsh mountain light. "Everything he's ever done has either been for you or for Sam. Just this once, don't fight him on it!"

Dean opened his mouth to protest, but then Gabriel uttered one word Dean had never heard before without sarcasm or disdain.

"Please."

His teeth came together with a click.

"Don't make this harder for him."

Dean opened his mouth to speak again, but nothing came out. His silence seemed to satisfy something in the Wizard, who gave him a curt nod of dismissal. Before he knew why, Dean's feet were taking him back towards the cabin near the mountain's base. As much as he pushed it away, the idea that Gabriel might be right would not leave him be.

Castiel had always been the one person who he could be honest with. Ever since they met when they were five, Castiel had known every fault, every weakness, every embarrassing detail about Dean. There was nothing left to hide. But over the years of separation, how many times, without even meaning to, had Dean left out an embarrassing story in favor of one that painted him in a more favorable light? Dean stopped beside a tree, staring at nothing. How many times had Cas done the same? The bark bit into his knuckles despite the layer of cotton between his fist and the tree trunk. The pain did nothing to quell the ache in his chest, the horrible suggestion that he and Cas had been painting themselves so thickly so that all they knew of each other were these shallow masks, and if they could see beneath them, there wouldn't be this selfish impulse to grab Cas and never let him go. To ask him to stay. To doom Sam.

He couldn't do that, not when he wasn't even sure if he was asking for something that existed as anything more than an illusion.

Dean put Cas out of his mind. He spent the rest of the day with his family, losing himself in the warmth of the three people he had always loved the most. And if Michael seemed a little colder than usual, it couldn't reach him through the chill of his own heart.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Age 21

The harvest season was drawing to a close, which meant the Festival was going to start in a few weeks. Already there were merchants trundling through the Central Square. They were mostly peddlers selling 'exotic' wares with names longer than the distance they'd traveled. Swindlers, all of them, but they made the children laugh so no one really minded. Dean would have someone keep an eye on the tumblers from Savoy. There'd been rumors of child abductions following them around. First, though, there was a messenger from Thousand Port waiting in the Blue Room and about a hundred disgruntled petitioners waiting outside the Great Hall.

Jesse came running down from the battlements as soon as Dean rode through the gate.

"My Lord," the page panted, red in the face underneath the layers of the ridiculous uniform he insisted on keeping.

"Whoa there, Jesse. Take a breath before you faint." Dean swung himself off Impala's back and a groom led her to the stables.

Jesse obediently sucked in a lungful of air and held it until Dean began to worry about the state of his head.

"Let it out, boy," Dean ordered and Jesse exhaled loudly. "Now tell me what's going on."

"They're back!" Jesse blurted out, hands gesturing wildly in patterns Dean couldn't make out.

"Who's back?" Dean prompted, peeling off his riding gloves as he headed towards the kitchens for a quick snack before he had to make his appearance before the people.

"Everyone!" Jesse trotted at his heels. "Her Highness the Queen, His Graciousness Prince Samuel, High Wiz―"

"Where?" Dean snapped, swinging around on his heel and catching his page before the boy could crash into him. "Damn it, Jesse. Always lead with the most important facts. Where are they?"

"The Great Hall!"

Dean rushed away before Jesse finished speaking. He could hear the boy running after him, falling behind with each step, but he didn't have time to wait for his page. The fact that they were back could only mean one thing: Lucifer had found them.

It was inevitable of course, but there was a stagnant part of Dean that believed that this was the way it would always be, that Mary and Sam and the Wizards would run until they all died with gray hair and wrinkled skin. But now the question was only what had happened. Dean tried to have faith, to believe that the dissipation spell had worked, but he couldn't stop picturing his brother lying dead and broken.

The petitioners must have been sent home because there was only a group of ten guards at the entrance of the Great Hall, and they opened the great wooden doors as they saw him coming.

Once inside, the doors slammed shut behind him. The vaulted ceilings of the Great Hall rose high above him. The room seemed massive and silent once empty of people. His father was sitting at a trestle table to his left, head bent over someone unmoving and still laid out on the table top. Dean ran over, heart in his throat.

"Mom?" he said quietly as he stopped himself at the table's edge. Mary was laid out peacefully, golden hair fanning out around her face. A bandage was wound around her shoulder, a spot of blood blooming at the center. Dean's hand fluttered uselessly over her face, feeling her warmth, checking her pulse. He only took a breath when he was able to feel her do the same, a faint inhale and exhale that tickled the back of his hand.

"What happened?" he asked, but there was no one to answer him. His father's head remained bowed, both of his hands clasped around Mary's. He didn't look up when his eldest son spoke, but kept muttering - a prayer perhaps. Dean had never known his father to adhere to any particular religion, but if there was any time to start, this would be it.

There was only one other person in the room that was upright. Raphael stood at the other side of the hall. From the dark hair and the flowing robe, Dean figured that it was Michael that lay on the table in front of him. It made sense that Raphael would try to wake his father first. The two of them could work much quicker than Raphael by himself.

Dean gave his mother one more pat on the shoulder, reassuring himself that she was just sleeping, before he searched for his brother. Sam was just one table over, hair floppier than Dean had ever seen it before. Sam really did just look like he was sleeping. Mary had a sort of stillness to her, but even awake she radiated calm. His brother was a different matter. His face was scrunched up, like he was dreaming of skunks or rotten food. His fingers twitched and his limbs were sprawled in every which direction. Still, Dean leaned down over his face, feeling his breathing against his skin.

"Everything will be righted," Dean said quietly into his brother's ear, though he could have just as easily been talking to himself. "You're home now."

He stayed there by his brother's side for a few moments, patting down his chest and limbs, making sure he wasn't injured. Miraculously, Sam was unhurt, but maybe that was Lucifer's arrogance. The dark Wizard didn't need to do anything physical to Sam. He just had to speak the words to cast the second Mark, but even that had been thwarted by Cas' little dissipation trick.

Dean looked around the room for Cas, but he couldn't tell which robe was his. He laid Sam's hand on his stomach before moving on. Anna was the next closest. She had a swath of hair burned off the side of her head, and patches of her robe were singed, but there didn't seem to be anything else wrong with her. He gave her a silent nod of thanks.

Gabriel's skin was a violent purple, like he'd gone swimming in a tub of wine. There was a lazy grin on his face and a line of drool trickling down the side of his face. Dean could only assume he was having good dreams.

There were two more sleeping bodies between Gabriel and Michael. One was wearing the same Wizards' robes as the rest of them, but the other was wearing a suit of white. He'd never seen the man before. He had sandy blond hair, trimmed severely at the temples. A burn mark cut nastily across his chin in one spot and Dean couldn't help a petty thought of triumph. This must be Lucifer, taken down by his own damned spell. They'd hoped, of course, that Lucifer would be caught in the shock wave of the spell. Not only did it save Sam's life, it captured the greatest dark Wizard of their age.

Dean didn't spare another moment on the man who'd been casting a shadow over their lives since he was four.

"We did it, Cas," he said grinning as he looked down at the last table. Castiel lay straight and stiff, like he was still ready for a fight. There was even a little frown still creasing his forehead. Was that how he always looked when he slept? Or was that just a state reserved for magic-induced comas? Dean reached out and smoothed out his brow. Cas had a cut across his cheek and some scratches on his hand, but there didn't seem to be anything else wrong with him. Having made his rounds, Dean settled down at the table.

He slung one leg up onto the bench and rubbed lazy circles in the back of Cas' palm with his thumb. Cas would wake up and they'd all celebrate. Walker had spotted a black boar in the forest that would make a delicious meal, and there were always plenty of pheasants for Sam. They could even slaughter an ox for those steaks that Cas liked so much. The nobles would probably demand a tournament or something else grandiose to celebrate the return of the Queen and the Prince, but first they'd do something private, a family affair.

Then Dean could apologize to Cas and fix what he broke that night on his birthday. None of Gabriel's arguments were valid anymore. He wouldn't be some transient in Cas' life any more. They'd be constant and steady like they had been before they left. Except Dean wouldn't just be getting a friend back. This time when he kissed Cas, the Wizard wouldn't have any good reason to push him away.

Michael woke up with a gasp. He shot upright, eyes wild as he took in his surroundings. Once he seemed to recognize the Great Hall and his eldest son standing beside him, he relaxed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Good job," he said, patting Raphael on the shoulder. "Show me what you did."

"Mary first," John commanded from across the hall.

Dean followed the Wizards to stand by his mother and watched as Raphael showed his fathers the adjustments he'd made to the waking spell they'd developed mostly through guesswork. When Mary woke up, she blinked placidly and smiled. Dean caught her hand as she reached up towards him and helped her sit upright, careful with her shoulder.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Like I drank too much honey mead and not enough water," she said with a laugh, bringing one hand up to rub at her temple.

Dean choked out a laugh. He'd never seen his mother drunk. Maybe that would change now.

"Sam?" she asked, and they all moved on to the next table.

Sam's eyes fluttered open languorously, rolling over onto one side and squeezing his eyes shut against the bright lights. "I'm up," he groaned and slung an arm over his eyes.

"Come on, lazy pants," Dean prodded and Sam's eyes flew open as he bolted upright.

"Dean?"

"What, forgot your big brother already?"

"We're home!" Sam cheered and grabbed Dean in an embrace the knocked the air out of his lungs.

"Yeah," Dean coughed. "What have they been feeding you out there? Look at those arms."

Sam rubbed at his own biceps sheepishly. "I've been training."

"On your own?" Dean asked, skeptical.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Basically. Gabriel is more of a human target than a sparring partner, Cas cheats with his magic, and Anna just spends the whole time knocking me on my ass."

"That's how you know you're learning." Dean chuckled. "You should thank her."

"I will. Where is she? And Gabriel. And Cas."

"Coming right up. Come on, Sammy. Let's go welcome them back to the land of the living."

Anna woke first under Raphael's hand. She bolted upright and scanned the room with sharp eyes, still battle-ready. Only the sight of Lucifer lying prone two tables of way made her relax. A moment later her hand flew to her head. "My hair," she groaned.

"Oh sweetie," Mary said with a laugh. "It'll grow back."

"It looks good!" Sam chimed in.

Anna shot him a grateful if unbelieving smile.

Gabriel woke up with an exaggerated yawn, joints popping one by one as he stretched them. With one purple arm flung over his eyes, he mumbled, "Did we win?"

"See for yourself, you lazy arse," Anna snapped, swinging herself off the table to lay a solid smack against Gabriel's chest.

"Oh good. If you're still alive, Lucifer must be dead," Gabriel sighed and dragged himself upright.

Dean expected them to move to Cas after that, but the four of them stood clustered in a circle, arguing over something he couldn't make out.

"Hey!" he called. "Can't that wait for another five minutes?" When they turned to look at him, jerked his head at the youngest Wizard.

They didn't move.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" They weren't done yet. How could they just stand around talking when the last of them was still conked out? Lucifer, he understood. For all Dean cared, Lucifer could sleep until he rotted into dust, but Cas deserved, if nothing else, to be part of their little circle of Wizard disagreement.

Anna and Raphael glanced at their father. Gabriel opened his mouth, like he was about to speak, but Michael shushed him before he could say anything.

"There was a change in circumstances that we didn't inform you of." The High Wizard turned to the king and queen. "Any of you."

"What do you mean, Michael?" Mary said slowly.

Dean didn't know what to make of it. The Wizards stood with blank faces, staring coldly at the opposite wall. John had a frown on his face and Mary was looking frantically between them all. And all the color had drained from Sam's face.

"Sam?" Dean said.

"I'm not sure," Sam said, chewing on his lip, thinking. "Cas did something."

"What?" Dean asked, frustrated. He wished that Michael would just spit it out instead of making him wait. Whatever he had to say couldn't be as bad as this suspense. Cas was breathing. Dean was sure of that much, but there was still something bad going on and Michael was trying to create tension or find the right words or some other useless stalling tactic.

"Castiel used his Promise to cast a spell on Sam."

"We know," Dean spat. "The dissipation spell."

"No," Michael said, shaking his head. "Castiel cast a transference spell on Sam."

"A transfer―" Dean whipped around to stare at the sleeping Wizard. "He took it?"

"A Mark can't be erased. It's protected by the Geas itself, but it can be moved. Castiel managed to unbind the Mark from Sam and move it onto himself."

"But Sam's fifteenth birthday. You cast that spell on him," Dean argued. It didn't make sense.

"A ruse, I'm afraid," Michael sighed. "We needed Raphael there to cast the dissipation spell on Castiel. The ceremony involving Sam was nothing more than nonsense chanted over a few candles."

"So that's why he was stuck in the back room? Why you wouldn't let me see him?" Dean didn't wait for an answer before turning to his mother. "Did you know?"

He didn't need to hear her answer. Her face was as pale and stricken as if she had been slapped. "When did this happen?" she demanded.

"Just before my fourteenth birthday," Sam answered for Michael. "Cas told me he was just testing something, but it felt different than before. It felt like he was shaking something inside of me. He threw up after that, but he just said he'd eaten something he shouldn't have." Sam looked furious and all of it was directed at Michael. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't any of you tell me? This is my life! You have no right to make these decisions for me."

"We felt it safest to keep it among the five of us," Raphael said. "The chance that one of us would tell―"

"Raphael," Michael snapped and Raphael shut his mouth with a grimace. Michael turned back to Dean. "Castiel did not tell us until after he cast the spell. He felt you would disagree with his choice, so he did not tell you. By the time the rest of us knew, the damage had been done. There would be no purpose in informing any of you other than create conflict and risk a leak in information. In order to capture Lucifer, we couldn't let him know that we'd managed to remove his Mark from you."

Sam opened his mouth to protest again but Dean rushed in before him. "So what happens to Castiel now? Why aren't you waking him up?"

"We can't," Michael said.

"We haven't even tried," Gabriel added petulantly.

"We can't try," Raphael shot back.

"Why not?" Dean demanded.

"It's too dangerous," Raphael said abruptly.

Anna rolled her eyes. "What my brother is trying to say is that Lucifer will wake up if we wake Castiel, since he's the origin of the curse, which is also why we're not sure if the same spell that woke the rest of us would work on him."

"Well, you could try," Dean bit out.

"And we'd have a dark Wizard loose in the Great Hall. I would call that unwise," Raphael sneered.

"Then toss him in the dungeons first!"

"You think iron bars will hold him?"

"You brought that man into my castle," John interjected calmly before Dean and Raphael could start screaming at each other. "I expect you have a plan to deal with him."

"We do." Michael nodded. "I just need a few days to set up the appropriate wards to contain him."

"Maybe you should have done that in the first place," Dean muttered.

Michael shot him a venomous glare but didn't care to explain himself.

"Michael, I expect you to take charge of securing the dark Wizard. I also expect to see you resuming your duties at court. You have my gratitude for saving my lady wife and my son." John placed a hand on Sam's shoulder and bowed his head towards the Wizards as a group. "For now, we all have duties we must attend to. I will need the Great Hall to greet Lady Moseley. Dean, you may take petitions in my stead in the Small Hall."

Dean opened his mouth to protest. He knew his father had no great love for Castiel. The Wizard had always been just one of many in the king's eyes, disposable if not for the Oath he'd sworn to Sam. But this treatment was callous, even for him. Mary grabbed Dean's wrist and looked up at him. "There's nothing you can do for him in this instant," she murmured. "The kingdom still has needs. You can see him afterwards. And who knows. Maybe he'll wake up as soon as Lucifer is put behind wards."

Dean wanted to argue with her. He wasn't useless. There had to be something he could do. He'd been the one to find the book that saved Sam. He could do the same for Cas, he just needed some time. But she was right. It could be that simple. In a few days, with Lucifer secured, Michael would try the waking spell on Cas and he could pop right up no worse for the extra sleep. So Dean cast one last glance at his friend and headed to the Small Hall.

Four days later, with Lucifer contained the night before, they discovered that it wasn't that simple.

Dean was in chambers for half the day. There were land disputes, trade disputes, marriage disputes, the same disputes that had been happening for years. Dean was agitated as they sat down in the morning, impatient with the speaker before they'd even made their complaint. His mood only grew worse as they reached impasse after impasse until he'd stormed out in a rage. For once, his father let him go. He wasn't helping matters proceed.

That night was the feast, the big celebration of the Queen and Prince's return and the Dark Wizard's capture. Half of the nobles at the table didn't even know Michael had more sons past Raphael.

Dean's plan was to get drunk. He needed that rush, that giddiness that came with honeyed wine and mead. If he had a choice, he'd be in a tavern, looking for a fight, a little adrenaline to get his sluggish blood moving through his veins. Maybe that'd be enough to get him out of this slump. Instead he was sitting here, trying to smile, his brother seated silently to his right, neither of them doing more than pushing their food around their plates. With every course, he grew more morose, and when the jugglers came in from the wings, he excused himself altogether.

The raucous laughter disappeared behind him as he climbed the steps of the Wizard's Tower. Anna was the only one there. The Wizards took turns monitoring their youngest. They kept him hydrated, fed, clean, and warm, but they couldn't keep him alive for much longer. Castiel had two or three weeks at most before his body would simply give up. No one could sleep for eternity.

The simple bedroom was lined with books, charts, and drawings. A lonely crate of Castiel's personal effects sat in the corner. No one had unpacked it. Dean stormed past Anna with every intention of giving Cas a piece of his mind. He'd been preparing for this ever since the emissary from Thousand Port started talking about fish stocks and every time the speech ran through his head it grew longer and full of questions.

iThis was damned reckless of you, Cas. You were always the dependable one. I trusted you and you tossed that in the mud. Why couldn't you trust me the same way? And I don't just mean keeping these secrets. I mean why you did this in the first place. I know I was excited about the book, but if it wasn't the answer, you could have told me. We would have figure out something else together. So what was it? Desperation? Resignation? You should have talked to me. You should have said something, anything, because this? This isn't a solution. Trading your life for Sam's isn't the answer. Never was. If you thought otherwise then you're wrong and the birds must have chewed holes in your brain./i

Dean had thought it'd be easier with Castiel unable to interrupt with a sharp comeback, but it was all pointless if he couldn't hear, couldn't answer. Those limp hands and slack jaw made Dean feel sick. Instead, he turned to the unpacked crate and started rifling through Castiel's life.

Some things were familiar - a pointed hat embroidered with tiny angels, an old book with the corners so frayed that the pages were nearly round, a chain with a silver goshawk dangling at the center - but not most. There was a braided cuff from the Red Desert, a set of paintings that changed color in the light, a dagger edged in Meridian silver. And at the bottom of the crate were letters, stacks and stacks of them, black ink on thin, transparent paper. They weren't in envelopes, just folded and tied together in neat little bundles.

Dean jumped when he heard Anna speak behind him. He pulled his hand back quickly, guilty for being caught.

"He would write one every Friday," she said. "Gabriel teased him for keeping a diary, but Castiel would say that they were letters."

Dean wet his lips. "Who was he writing to?"

Anna shrugged.

Dean glanced at the letter again, curious, but didn't reach for them. "Do you have news?" he asked instead.

"No," she said wearily. The firelight flickered and Dean could make out the dark circles under her eyes.

"Anything I can do?" He was asking the same questions over and over, stuck in a ditch, trying to dig his way out with no shovel and no idea of which way was up.

"You could keep reading but, the only magic that could possibly counteract a Blessing is a second Blessing and―" Her defeat was written clearly in her shoulders. Dean understood. Blessings were a luxury afforded only to the royal line. Sam had a chance. Cas didn't.

"Then what is Michael doing? He's been holed up in his office all day!"

Her hands trembled before she caught the edge of her sleeve. "Experiments," she said simply and turned away.

Dean couldn't stay there after that. It was no better than sitting in a room with a corpse. Instead, he found his way to the nearest tavern outside the castle walls. Even here there were revelers, with rounds being called in the name of the Queen. After a while, it didn't matter what they were saying. His head swam and his legs gave out and he might have punched someone. He didn't know how long he lay drooling in the alehouse before men in black and silver hauled him from the tavern and back into the castle. They dumped him in a room that was familiar but he hadn't seen in a long time.

"Sammy!" he drawled. "I'm so happy―" He tried to tell Sam how glad he was they were back, that he was safe, but he couldn't quite get his tongue to finish a sentence.

"You're not happy, Dean," Sam grimaced and poured a mugful of water. "You're drunk."

The cold water jolted some sense back into him and he came up spluttering. "What in the King's name are you doing, Sam?"

"I should ask you the same thing. Do you have nothing better to do than get into drunken brawls?"

Dean curled in on himself and groaned. It hurt his head to think. "Nothing I can do," he said.

Sam sighed and dragged Dean up into the bed. Sam's bed, Dean thought and smiled slightly. It was finally getting some use after so long.

"Fine, then you can lay here like a useless lump," Sam said. Dean nodded dumbly. He was useless. He couldn't do anything. All he could do was get sloppy drunk and vomit over some poor barmaid before punching the guy next to him in the face. Sam kept talking, though. "But Cas never gave up on me. I'm not going to give up on him."

Dean tried to tell him it was impossible, but the words stuck in his throat. He had no hope himself, but he could cling to a scrap of Sam's.

Sam's plan, it turned out, wasn't so much Sam's plan as it was one of Gabriel's hare-brained schemes.

"You want to what?" Dean snarled, fist slamming the breakfast table so hard that the plates jumped. "He's the one who put us in this mess in the first place."

"Yeah," Gabriel said, rolling his eyes. "So maybe he might know how to get us out of it. Mikey's been telling me stories about old uncle Lucy. He might be dark magic incarnate, but he is smart. Maybe he built himself a backdoor."

"Or he triggers his own backdoor and kills us all."

Gabriel, at least, paused to give this possibility some consideration, but Sam blazed straight through, shaking his head. "I think Gabriel is right. Lucifer could have just left after he was banished, but he didn't. He wants something from us."

"He hasn't made any demands," Dean argued.

"Every time he's come near us, we attack, banish him, drive him away. He never gets the chance to make demands."

"Troll's blood," Dean hissed and dragged a hand through his hair. "If he had demands he would have gotten them to us." Michael had placed wards all over Lucifer's cell. He should have no more power than a common man while trapped inside. But if the stories were true, Lucifer had always been stronger than Michael, and had an extra edge of cunning and wit. Who knew how long the wards would hold once he woke up? If they broke, Gabriel would have no chance of holding him off.

And still Dean was considering it. "Does this plan have Michael's approval?"

Gabriel and Sam glanced sideways at each other.

Dean sighed. "What about Anna? Or Raphael?"

"We haven't asked them yet," Sam admitted.

"Hey," Gabriel protested, puffing up a little, though it was ridiculous since even Sam was taller than he was. "I was going to at least consult with Raphael, make sure I knew how to perform the counterspell. Give me some credit. And think of it this way, Deanie. We get that spell off of old Lucy and you can work out some of your manly rage with your fist against his face."

"And Anna would help us!" Sam added. "I know she would."

"But not Michael," Dean reminded him blandly.

"Dad's a little biased," Gabriel winced. "Can't imagine any of their family gatherings could have been any fun for him."

"Give me one good reason we should do this."

Sam just looked him in the eye with all the confidence of a younger brother who never had his heart broken by the people he trusted. "Because it's Cas."

And really, that was enough for Dean.

Lucifer's grin was feral. The chains didn't bother him. Nothing did. Instead, he sat in the middle of the cold stone cell as if the iron bars that held him were just the pillars of his throne room. He might be a madman, but he knew what he wanted.

"Lucifer," Raphael said coolly.

"No," Lucifer interrupted with a single finger held between them. "I am not here to speak with you."

Dean could practically see Raphael's hackles rising. "Then who―"

"Samuel," Lucifer interrupted again with a lilt in his voice. "I didn't expect to see you... well, alive."

"You don't have to say anything," Dean cut in before Sam could speak.

"And Dean." Lucifer turned his sun-bright smile on the other Prince standing outside his cell. "It's a shame we haven't had the chance to meet before."

"It really is too bad I never got the chance to ram my blade through your chest." Dean's hand clenched reflexively around the hilt of his sword. If they didn't need this snake of a man to cooperate, he'd already have sheathed his weapon in his blood.

"Can you see nothing past the length of your sword arm?" Lucifer sighed. "That's your problem."

"What's my problem?" Dean snapped, though he knew he was playing right into Lucifer's hands.

"Not your problem personally. It's a problem shared by all the people. There exists in each of you a degree of arrogance and entitlement. You all believe yourselves better than those you put down. You never stop to think that you might be wrong."

"Oh, believe me, I know I don't always make the best decisions," Dean said with a grimace. He was regretting this already. "But we're not here to talk about me. I want to give you the chance to make a choice."

"Really," Lucifer mocked. "Let me guess. Either I do what you want me to do or you, what is it you have planned? Hanging? Beheading? Oh! Torture?" Lucifer winked conspiratorially. "Tell me. What is your wish, my lord?"

Dean knew what type of man Lucifer was; he had met the same sort on the field. They would goad and wheedle and poke until their opponent grew angry and made a mistake, leaving themselves open. It wasn't a trick that would work now. "You will give us the counterspell to the Mark of the Wretched," Dean said calmly.

"Oh?" Lucifer said blandly, but his dull mask of indifference fell away after a moment, curling up into a sly smile. "You know, Dean, it was always supposed to be you. Had you been born just two years later, then Michael would have the crown prince traipsing across the world. That was another surprise." Lucifer chuckled. "I didn't expect dear Michael to be so involved."

"Tell us what you want!" Sam piped up before Dean could stop him.

"What I want?" Lucifer looked at them all through sandy lashes, his easy manner suddenly falling away to reveal his sharp edges. "I wanted the Crown Prince in my noose and the Campbell queen dead. I wanted John on his knees begging for me to save the alliance."

The blue of Lucifer's eye seemed to bleed in the dim light, his entire person softening at once. "After all, a father would do anything to save his firstborn son." His lips curled up. "But alas, all I could get my hands on was the spare. But this might work after all." He spread his arms and crossed his legs at the ankles like a martyr waiting to be drawn up the iron cross. "And after that, things started falling in place. You fell for the poor little gypsy girl who was too distraught to notice a few additions to her papa's library. You figured out the little dissipation spell. Beautiful work, by the way. I hadn't planned on my littlest nephew taking the fall, Cas is it? But that doesn't seem to matter now."

"You're stalling," Dean said impatiently, fuming internally at having played directly into Lucifer's plans.

"Oh no," Lucifer said, grinning expansively. "I'm not stalling. I've irevelling/i."

"It doesn't matter," Dean growled. "How do we save him?"

"I assume you know your history, proper Winchester heirs that you are. I will also assume you have an adequate grasp of the workings of the Geas. For example," Lucifer said, tenting his fingers under his chin. "Blessings are the strongest form of magic currently available to your indentured Wizard. A Blessing cannot be undone, a concept which I'm sure you're more than well acquainted with."

Dean let out an entirely appropriate growl, moving slightly to place himself between the caged Wizard and his younger brother.

"But there are portions of the Geas that you have not been exposed to. No, the King wouldn't want that, and my brother, odd little boy that he was, wouldn't want that either. You see, Michael was always chained to his pedestal atop Mage Peak. He always thought he was better than your average hedgewitch, in both magic ability and mental capacity. They couldn't be trusted. After all, the Mage Wars are the perfect testament to their savage nature."

"What does any of that have to do with Cas?"

Lucifer blinked twice and chuckled to himself. "iCastiel/i. I see. You must understand the nature of the Marks. The Geas isn't just a big rock in an empty chapel inscribed with a treatise of surrender carved hundreds of years ago. The Geas is the strongest piece of magic, stolen from every witch, mage, and Wizard on the continent and anchored in the earth itself. The Geas itself provides the power behind the Blessings. That is why they never weaken, never fade, and why an eight-year-old with only the very basic understanding of what they are doing can grant a lifetime of health and charm. I can't help you, you see, because I'm not the one holding the power. The curse is firmly rooted in the Geas itself and there is only one way to dig it out."

Lucifer was far blunter than the dignitaries Dean was used to dealing with. Usually he'd be guessing whether a man wanted military assistance, a marriage pact, or simply to test the mettle of the next Winchester in line for the throne. This request was practically spelled out for him. Only the complete absurdity of the suggestion kept him hesitant.

"You want to undo the Geas?" he said incredulously.

"Exactly." Lucifer beamed.

"Is that even possible?" Sam whispered, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Of course," Lucifer scoffed. "It was never meant to last forever. I'm sure you've noticed that no treatise ever does."

"No," Raphael said firmly, ignoring Lucifer's caustic glare. "We can't do that. The consequences are too great!"

"And what are the consequences?" Dean asked.

"A clean slate," Lucifer said firmly, spreading his empty palms like he was offering a gift. "Everyone is given a chance to start over. The remnants of the war will be erased from the land. Any spell, Blessings included, will be null."

"And every mage, witch, and Wizard will have their power back," Raphael said hotly.

Lucifer inclined his head in agreement. "As it was always meant to be."

"I," Dean stammered then stopped. This was too big for him. His father didn't even let him welcome ambassadors by himself, much less decide the fate of the entire kingdom. "I'll consider your suggestion," he said, trying not to sound weak in front of this powerful man. He turned to the Wizards. "Anna, get out of here. You don't need to take a nap. Gabe, put him back to sleep."

They waited a few minutes for Anna to leave the dungeons before Gabriel stepped forward to lay his hand on Dean's forehead.

"I, Gabriel Argenet, third-born of Michael Argenet, High Wizard of the lands, fulfill my oath to Dean Winchester, firstborn of John Winchester, king of the lands, on this day, as per the Geas of old. I grant upon you the Mark of the Redeemed."

Dean flinched despite himself, but nothing happened, at least not to him. Lucifer's body fell down with a thump, heavy chains rearranging themselves over him. Dean managed to catch Gabe as the Wizard slumped forward into his arms.

"I'm surprised the residual Mark was enough to put them back to sleep," Raphael admitted with a raised brow as he helped lay his brother down on the ground.

"Wake him up and meet me in the Solar. Sam and I'll go get Anna," Dean said.

The Solar glowed an eerie orange from the candles reflected in the tall windows. Of the five of them, only Gabriel opted to take a seat. Dean for one was too agitated to stay still.

"You all heard him as well as I did," Dean said, voice gruff as he surveyed the room. "Is he telling the truth?"

"You can't possibly be considering this." Raphael loomed over his brothers and sisters, but when he stepped closer, he lost the height advantage to Dean. "Power breeds madness, and it will take ahold of this land like an eagle does a lamb and squeeze the lifeblood from all you hold dear."

"Goodness," Anna sighed. "You should really spend a little more time away from courtiers. They're turning you into a blowhard."

"And risk encouraging him?" Raphael spun around, eyes nearly bulging out of his head. "Even you, dear sister, must understand the inherent danger in bringing us back to the days before the last Mage War."

"And you're only looking at the worst possible outcome." She pulled herself up, shoulders set defiantly. In many ways, Anna was the eldest sibling. She was the buffer when her father grew too demanding, the ameliorator when her younger brothers were upset, and the teacher to help them grow. Raphael had effectively been an only child for eight years and it showed. While he was still taller in height, she had grown older with experience.

"We all suffer from the Geas, even you," Anna said calmly. "We lost our home, but a family is a home as well, and you lost your home in that way. You never complained, not once, but we heard things from Dean, through Castiel. It wasn't easy for you here. Look at you. You're as thin as a stick. You're thirty and still haven't found a wife. There's too much work for five Wizards, much less one. It wouldn't be this way without the Geas."

"You appeal to my selfishness?" he sneered.

"You've seen more from this one perch than we have flying over the world. I tried to help, when I could, but I never stayed in one place long enough to know the people. Tell me, then, do you truly think so little of those tilling the field and hunting the forests? That they can't be taught? Can't be trusted?"

"I can't know that, not for sure," he sighed and shook his head.

"The bloodlines haven't been pure for centuries," she continued. "Ours is the only one that still picked and selected for those with the right heritage. After the Geas was wrought, the great families only stayed true for two or three generations before they were forced to realize they were no different from the common folk without their magic. There are probably pockets, anomalies, where bloodlines converge, but there aren't enough to start a new War. Most likely we are the only ones left who could."

Raphael turned away to pace, glancing occasionally at Lucifer and his sister. Dean had listened silently to Anna's arguments and they were good arguments. But there was one that she hadn't made, that couldn't go unsaid.

"Your brother would live," Dean said. "You'd have Cas."

Sam's eyes shot to him, wide and bright. "You're going to do it then?"

Dean shook his head. Anna was right about so many things, but Raphael was right about others. There wasn't so much difference between a rich man and a poor man. They still loved their home, their children, their drink, their dice, but the distance between a live man and a dead man was so vast that an entire profession had sprung from defining the difference. Just the same, someone may consider the difference between a hedgewitch and a Wizard to be very small indeed, but to go from no Magic to a land thrumming with ancient power was something inconceivable. Even if most were harmless, it only took one bad apple to spoil the entire bunch. Another Lucifer could rise up, someone charismatic, whispering in innocent ears, turning them into an army.

He hated the fact that he couldn't decide, couldn't snap his fingers and choose. It would be easy to say no. Nothing would change. No new dangers would arise. But saying no would be condemning Cas to death, and Dean couldn't bring himself to do that.

The rest of that day wore a mask of rigid normalcy. Breakfast with a lord from the north. Petitions. Chambers. Dinner with his mother. Sparring with Rufus. Talks about grain imports from the south. Resolving a border dispute around the Great Basin. Dean was surprised at how calm he was, even with two overbearing nobles shouting in his ear. It was like nothing could rattle him because he was so shaken already.

Raphael didn't find him until just before suppertime.

"Have you made up your mind?" the Wizard asked bluntly.

"No." A spilled pot of ink had soaked through his tunic, staining the front muddy brown. Dean was headed back to his rooms to change before he became the laughing stock of the day. Jesse followed dutifully at his heels, but he waved the boy off before Raphael could say anything further.

"This isn't a difficult decision, my Lord." The honorific sounded like an insult rolling off Raphael's tongue. "The suggestion that you would go through with this plan is insanity."

Anger boiled up in Dean but he couldn't let go, not here where there were ears everywhere. He walked faster, forcing the Wizard to run to keep up.

"Anna is correct that with more hands, the mundane issues of weather and pestilence and warding would be diminished, but there are hundreds of new magical problems that will arise and we are simply not equipped to deal with it. If there were a hundred Wizards whom you could trust with your life, we'd still be short-handed. The castle guard is three hundred men, and even then crime still goes unpunished within the city."

Raphael quieted as they reached the door to Dean's chambers, and didn't speak until Dean had waved away the two knights standing guard.

"And I know that you are giving consideration to Castiel's fate, and it may seem cold of me to argue against my own brother's salvation but―"

Dean slammed the door closed behind them and stormed up to Raphael. "But what? But you're willing to let him die?"

"This was his choice, Dean," Raphael snarled, raising his voice for the first time. "He knew the risks. He was willing to sacrifice himself for Sam's life. Do you think he wouldn't do the same for the kingdom? For thousands of men and women and children?"

"You don't know that," Dean said, turning away, even though he did. If Cas could talk, he'd probably tell Dean to let him go, that he wasn't worth it. But even if Cas were here to say that, even with Cas staring up at him with those stupidly beautiful eyes, Dean would fight him every step of the way.

"No, maybe I don't," Raphael said angrily. "Because I don't properly know my brother anymore and neither do you. I know far better than you the evil that walks hand in hand with power. For every problem that magic solves, it creates another. Castiel is my brother. We may not be close, but he holds all the affection that term implies, and though it pains me to say so, this is not worth his life. To you he is no more than a childhood friend, little more than a memory. You barely know him anymore, not after eight years. You can't sacrifice your kingdom for a ghost."

Dean cringed. If it was just Raphael, Dean would shove him out the door and slam it in his face. But there was the Dean that sat on stiff-backed thrones, who flirted with Lady Barnes so she wouldn't withdraw her naval support along the Ragged Coast, who drank Lord Marson under the table to secure lower lumber costs - that Dean was nodding along with Raphael's every word. But then there was the Dean who arbitrated livestock disputes and heard complaints on oil taxes, and poured mead in the main square on the last night of the Harvest Festival. That Dean clung to Anna's belief in a people who could learn and wouldn't turn into violent savages at the nudge of power.

"You've said your piece," Dean said quietly and opened the door once more. "Now get out of my chambers."

"Dean―"

"Get out now or I'll have your head on the block," he growled.

It was obviously a bluff, but the Wizard left anyways, leaving Dean with some quiet, but no peace. Dean anticipated another sleepless night, arguing with himself in his head. All day, his duties had kept him distracted and he hadn't made any headway. Now, maybe he could have time to find his direction.

Someone rapped sharply on his door.

"What?" Dean roared, annoyed at yet another interruption.

"My Lord?" Jesse's reedy voice floated through the wood.

Dean sat down heavily in an armchair. He needed to pull himself together if he was snapping at Jesse, of all people. "What is it?"

"I was wondering if you needed any assistance preparing for supper?"

Dean glanced down at the stain on his chest and cursed quietly to himself. Supper was waiting, and with it his father and an entire slew of men and women he had to impress.

"No, I can handle this on my own. You just run down to the kitchens and see if they need any help."

"Yes, m'Lord!" Jesse called out excitedly. There were always strips of fat or extra sweets in the kitchen for the children.

Dean stripped out of his tunic and threw on a new one. A decision would have to wait until later.

Dean was humble enough to admit that he was hiding. He wasn't hiding well. Everyone could guess where he was, but the important thing was that none of them were here. A wise king listened to his counsel, and Dean had heard plenty from Raphael, then Anna, then Raphael again. Even Gabriel, who usually shied away from sibling conflict, had shown up to see if Dean had made a decision and slipped away quietly when Dean told him he hadn't.

Impala whickered softly as he ran the brush through her mane. He could have a groom take care of this, but he found it usually cleared his head. Unfortunately, it wasn't working.

"Dean?" Sam called from the front of the stall.

"What?" Dean said without looking up.

"I figured you'd be here."

Dean waited for the argument. He was almost certain Sam stood on the side of taking Lucifer's offer, but he wasn't sure at which angle his brother would approach it. He wasn't expecting Sam to walk into the stall with Impala's saddle in hand.

"Here. Get her ready. We're going for a ride."

Dean shot Sam a questioning look, but Sam turned and left the stall without a word of explanation. When Dean led Impala out of the stables, his brother was already astride a tall gray mare.

The guards watched them warily as they shot through the gate and down the central avenue. If anyone recognized the two princes, they didn't say a word, though neither of them looked particularly regal with their plain leathers and unshaven faces. The creek was burbling sluggishly to their right before Dean recognized where they were going. He hadn't been back since Cas and Sam left with all the solace the old mill held for him. Afterwards, he always thought of it as too dusty, the old beams too unstable. The corners still looked dark and dank when he clambered through the broken doors, though a ray of sunlight hit the wall.

Nearly eight years had passed and the colors were still as vibrant and gay as the day they'd found the mural. A crack had formed in the wall, cutting through the top right corner where the harpy flew around the jaw of a manticore so that they gazed at each other from across the chasm.

"Dean!" Sam called again, from somewhere above. When Dean looked up, his brother had clambered up the half-fallen stairs into the rafters of the mill. He hadn't minded when they were little, when Sam was light enough for Dean to throw, but now, Sam must be heavier than Dean had been back then.

"Get down," he snapped.

"No. Come up here," Sam gestured, one hand braced against the ceiling.

Dean bit his lip, considering the old beams and planks before hauling himself through the maze and into the shadowed eaves. "What?" he said, shakily, as he clung to one of the sturdier supports, edging closer to where Sam stood.

"I want to show you something," Sam said as he jumped from the rafter onto one of the great wooden wheels. It creaked dangerously under his weight, but Sam didn't seem to mind.

"I am not doing that," Dean said calmly as he looked straight up, refusing to cast his eyes downward. Sam may have spent a month or a year living in treetops or mountainsides but the highest Dean could get by himself without breaking into a sweat was astride a horse.

"You don't have to." The sound of wood scraping against wood drew Dean's eyes to the side of the mill, just underneath a round window set just under the roof. "Just look."

A chunk of wood, the size of Sam's head, ripped from the wall. Behind it were two figures dressed in long blue robes holding hands between the two of them. The painting was childish, barely resembling the Wizards they represented, clearly drawn before the mural that covered the rest of the wall.

"Remember how we noticed there weren't any people?"

Dean nodded and Sam pointed at two signatures, written by two different hands. One was blocky and rigid, perfect in its straight lines and even curves. The other was wilder but more artistic, filled with whorls and little flourishes.

"Michael and Lucifer," Sam read out loud, though Dean could see them just fine.

He was, in fact, staring at them. His mind tried to resolve the children who drew this with the grown men he knew and it was surprisingly simple. Michael was the figure on the left, black hair pressed neatly to his head, back rigid and posture straight. Lucifer, with his head of blond hair, was grinning madly with his other hand raised in a frozen gesture.

"When did you find that?" Dean asked.

His brother shrugged and hopped up from the wheel, catching one of the beams and swinging himself back into the rafters. "Third or fourth time we were here."

"And you didn't tell us?" Dean demanded, incredulous. "Sam, what if Lucifer had come back here! He could have found us! How could you be so stupid?"

The last time they were here, his angry tone and harsh words would have made Sam cry, but now Sam just rolled his eyes. "But he didn't." A soft smile loosened his features. "And this was our place, Dean. It was just the three of us, and it was the only place that you two would ever relax, where Cas wouldn't constantly harp on me to study or you to train. I didn't want to ruin it, and I knew you two would never come up here, so I hid it."

Dean frowned, another admonishment poised on the edge of his tongue, but Sam was right. That was all in the past. Lucifer was sleeping in the dungeons beneath the castle and wouldn't be bothering them now.

"Why did you show me now?" he asked instead and started easing his way back down to ground level. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have so far off the floor with no one to catch him.

"Because," Sam huffed as he jumped down nimbly after him. "You need to see Lucifer as more than a Dark Wizard or a madman. I don't think he wants chaos or destruction. There are easier ways to do that then painting a red target on his back and prance through the royal castle, and he's smart enough to know that. I think he just wants to reach a balance of magic in the world."

"Sam," Dean sighed, frustrated. "There are no people in the painting. It's all monsters and magefolk! Maybe he wants all the witches and mages and dragons living happily ever after, but what about the rest of us?"

"Did you know Grandpa Samuel was a mage?" Sam said abruptly.

Dean stilled with one leg extended over a gap, his hands planted on the wood below him. "What?"

"I asked mom to tell me stories about growing up in Campbell."

Dean looked down through the slats at his brother, lost, a wave of regret for all the moments he missed washing over him.

"His bloodline wasn't pure, of course," Sam continued, oblivious as he hopped down to the ground. "I think his great-great-great-grandmother was a mage. What I mean, though, is that everyone probably has a little magic in their blood by now. Not enough to do anything, but it's not just Magefolk and Commonfolk anymore."

They sat on the great grinding stone where they'd always piled together in the past. Dean glanced up at the crack. It felt different now, not just because it was only two instead of three, but because Sam was nearly as tall as Dean was, lanky but sure-footed. He had the same goofy grin, but there was something harder there behind his eyes, and Dean wasn't sure if Lucifer put it there or if that was just the result of growing up.

Cas' eyes were never soft, even when they were kids, but the sharp glint had disappeared in the last few years. He wanted to see if it was back now, or if that had never been Cas in the first place.

"So everyone is just one big happy family, is that right?" Dean asked grimly.

"I mean it's a possibility."

Dean huffed. "If you're trying to sway my decision, you're not doing a very good job of it."

"I don't want to lie to you or pretend I know what's going to happen," Sam said and kicked at a loose rock sticking out from under the grinding stone.

"All these Wizards and not one has figured out how to tell the future yet," Dean said bitterly.

"You know, I didn't think this would be your biggest issue."

Dean's head snapped up, catching his brother's gaze over his shoulder. "Why not?"

"I expected you to be conflicted about Cas."

His stomach fluttered uncomfortably under Sam's scrutiny. "Say what you mean, will you?" he asked.

"I mean Cas is dying right now. Every second we wait, he slips further away, and he will die. And you would let that happen?"

"Of course not, Sam. That's the only reason I'm even considering this in the first place. If it wasn't Cas' life on the table, you think I'd go anywhere near the Geas?"

"Then what's stopping you?' Sam demanded.

Dean rocked up onto his feet and glared down at his brother. "You think it's that simple? This is Lucifer we're talking about aligning with. There's got to be another way that doesn't involve giving him what he wants."

Sam didn't bother raising his voice when he asked, "What if it had been me? Would you have hesitated?"

It hurt Dean that there was even a hint of doubt in his brother's voice. "Of course not! You're my brother."

"Then why is this different?" Sam pressed.

"Because he shouldn't be anything to me!" Dean shouted. "I wouldn't do this for Benny or Ash or Garth. Why is Cas different?"

"You know why."

Of course Dean knew why. He avoided thinking about it like the plague, because if he prodded that cache of secrets, it would burst and subsume him. And there were too many reasons why that couldn't happen.

"I can't," he moaned, dropping his head into his hands. Sam laid a warm hand on his shoulder.

"I know you, Dean. You might not think so, because we've kind of lost touch over the years," Sam said wryly.

Dean choked out a weak laugh.

"But I know the important things that will never change."

Dean knew what his brother meant. There were aspects of Sam that were carried in his blood, buried bone-deep and unmovable. No matter how much Sam would change, he would always recognize those pieces of him. It was the same with Cas, he realized. Gabriel might know the minute details, might even know Cas better, but that didn't mean that Dean didn't see below his surface and straight into his heart. Cas' heart was always big, warm, and steady, and Dean was lucky enough to be allowed part of that.

"You'll never forgive yourself if you let him die," Sam continued, but Dean didn't need convincing anymore. Before his brother could say anything else, Dean pulled him roughly into a hug.

Sam was right. There was no question, never should have been one. Castiel had a certain gravity that always pulled Dean back, even when Cas was the one leaving. Even when they were thousands of leagues apart, it felt like Cas was right there, just out of sight, waiting for Dean to turn around and see him. The sensation was uncanny, but Dean understood that Cas was there, a piece of him carried around with Dean at all times. He was always firmly ensconced in Dean's heart. And Dean wasn't going to lose him now.

"Thanks, Sam. I got it now."

Dean wanted to kick himself for taking so long. Even if he had agreed to Lucifer's plan the moment he heard it, there wouldn't be enough time. The first thing they did was convince Raphael not to tell anyone. He came around eventually, when Anna and Gabriel threatened to tie him up in the woods and have one of Gabriel's illusions take his place.

Then, they did the best they could to prepare the kingdom for a sudden influx of Magic. They treated it like a war where the enemy had already managed to penetrate into the heart of the kingdom. The wards on the castle and city walls were strengthened against any attack, physical or magical. The main roads leading in and out were reinforced in case they needed to shelter refugees or deploy their forces or, in the worst possible case, evacuate the city. The three Wizards teleported to Thousand Port, Great Bend, Mage Peak, and as many of the smaller holdings as they could within five days to do the same. Cas wouldn't last much longer than that and Dean wasn't ready to risk his life by waiting any longer.

He took the time to organize a tournament to be held the day they planned on breaking the Geas. He invited every lord and lady he could think of as well as their greatest knights. When the turmoil started, he wanted as many of the major players within the castle walls as possible. Then, maybe, he could stave off any conflict that would arise when people were allowed to stew in their own pots.

The spell to break the Geas was surprisingly simple. The directions were written directly on the Geas stone and Dean didn't know why he never considered them before. His studies always took him to other parts of the inscriptions, about the restriction on Magic, the lineage of the Wizards, and the Blessings granted to the royal offspring. All it took was a few drops of King's blood and for the man himself to recite a few words.

Dean's heart plummeted into his stomach when Raphael read it aloud.

"He'll never agree to this," he said desolately, seeing all their plans come to naught.

"It doesn't matter," Raphael explained. "The Geas doesn't know who wears the crown. It only recognizes blood lines. Your blood will do as well as your father's."

Dean gulped and accepted the silver knife from the Wizard. "Here's hoping the Winchester queens have stayed true."

His palm stung as he drew the knife across his skin, but it was nothing compared to the hits he'd taken in battle. When his hand dripped red, Raphael directed it to the only unmarked space on the Geas stone's surface.

"Repeat after me." Raphael traced a line of text with his finger and spoke slowly.

The words were in Old Kathunian, so most of it sounded like gibberish to Dean's ears. Still, he carefully repeated every sound that Raphael gave to him. There were a few words that he remembered from other translations he'd studied. iOthn'mir/i - power. iReskisin/i - faith. iNuht/i - the end.

"It's done," Raphael murmured, letting his gaze slip away from the ancient stone and fixing Dean with his stare. If Dean didn't know better, he'd say the Wizard was terrified.

His hand left a bloody print against the smooth gray Geas stone. When nothing happened, Dean thought for one terrible moment that maybe his wasn't King's blood after all. It only took one pretender to lose the royal line for eternity. They may never find a true heir, much less in time to save Castiel's life.

But then his handprint faded. The stone sucked in the blood like cotton, though it left no stain behind. With a deafening crack and a loud flash, the Geas stone split down its center, leaving its two halves steaming in its wake. Dean didn't waste another moment standing in the Sanctuary. He bolted down the aisle and through the doors. The Wizard's Tower loomed dark and invisible in the night, but for a single flame flickering in a window far above the ground.

Dean rushed up the stairs, hand braced against the wall as he swung around the spiraled steps two a time. He didn't bother silencing his steps. Michael would know soon enough anyways.

"Cas?" he called as soon as he burst through the door at the top of the staircase. Please, he begged, please let him be awake. Sam opened the door to the small bedroom a moment before Dean reached it.

Dean dropped to his knees at the side of the bed and laid a hand on each side of Castiel's face.

"Cas?" he said again, softer this time. He couldn't be too late. Anna said he had at least another day before his body gave out. Dean could feel his breath against his face, his warm skin under his fingers. So why wasn't he waking up? Could it be that the Geas wasn't broken after all? But then what was all that flash and show in the Sanctuary? Why else would the stone break in half? He looked up wildly, seized between staying by Castiel's side and running back to Raphael, find out for sure what had happened.

A warm hand closed around his shoulder and the wrong pair of blue eyes locked on to his.

"Dean," Anna said gently. "He's not going to wake up."

"No," Dean said hoarsely, deafened by the blood rushing in his ears. "No, no, no."

"Dean!" Anna shook him, all the mildness gone out of her voice. "Pay attention! He is not going to wake up right away.

When he tried to speak, it was like trying to talk with a mouthful of sand. "When?" he managed to croak.

"It could be anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. You have to think of him as being very sick right now. He isn't going to recover instantly from ten days of the Mark's influence. You need to give it some time."

"Yes," Dean nodded frantically. Time he could give.

All through that first night, Dean stayed by his bedside, clasping his hand between his own. At some point, he crawled onto the narrow bed and fell asleep with his body bracketing Castiel's like a barrier between him and evils of the world.

Sam came to wake him in the morning. The castle was in an uproar.

"Everyone's talking about it," Sam hissed as he ushered Dean down the steps of the tower. "Some people are calling it treason." Raphael, Anna, and Gabriel were already waiting for them at the base, and together, they went to face the King.

John was furious. He spat words of duty and disappointment and treason in all their faces. Normally, Dean would be cowering in his boots, unable to look his father in the eye, but now, even though his vision swam with his father's furious eyes, he felt himself drifting. Cas could wake up any moment, by himself. Or even worse he wouldn't wake up at all. Then there was the tournament and the people he'd have to keep an eye on, the people he had to sway.

"Well?" John demanded. "What do you have to say?"

Dean snapped back to attention and looked for a response. He could defend himself. He could repeat all of Anna's arguments. He could even talk about Lucifer's one-man crusade. But what was done was done and nothing he could say would change that.

"Lord Elkins is arriving soon with his son," he said instead. "His House is descended from a line of Wizards, but the family has not kept to those bloodlines for at least five generations. The name will still hold some sway, so I plan on offering him access to the quarry on Watcher's Helm in return for his support."

John gaped at him. Dean was practically shaking in his boots when Garth broke the tense silence, rushing forward with a proclamation. "Lord Highstone has arrived with his revenue."

Dean took a deep breath and avoided looking at his father. The council would listen to the crown Prince only so long as the King did not contradict him. Breaking the Geas had backed everyone into a corner and only with carefully maneuvering would they come through this unscathed. Dean had placed them in this mess and he was determined to get them out. There were a hundred things to do in the next day and another hundred the day after. It was enough to set his head spinning.

Raphael cut into his moment of disorientation with an uncharacteristically gentle, "I'll greet him and escort them to the quarters in the east corridor. You will wish to speak with them after dinner?"

"And I'll go see if Henrickson's got all the preparations completed for the tournaments," Gabriel added right after that.

With a quick nod towards the rookery, Anna said, "I have some missives to send regarding the proposal between the Campbells and the Roseshires."

Dean shot them all a thankful grin before he brought himself back around to face his father, ready for a fight, but John had looked the stunned look on his face. It had been replaced by one of consideration, solemn and dark.

"This is your plan for fixing what you did?" the king said sternly.

"Not fixing," Dean said with a shake of his head. "Building. Breaking the Geas was only the first step. We have a plan, father. If you come with me, I can show it to you. I'd like to work with you on this." He was shaking on the inside, nothing more than a child looking for his father's approval, but Dean made sure to present himself as proud and unshakeable, a man to trust.

The king raised an eyebrow and gestured for Dean to lead the way and Dean felt relieved at the concession. He could do this, even if he had to take one small step at a time.

Dean was exhausted by the time he made his way back up the Wizard's Tower. His day had been spent fielding questions, concerns, and more than a few threats. This was not the time to be distracted, and yet throughout it all, he only wanted to be back here.

"You'll be staying here tonight, my lord?" Jesse asked nervously. The upheaval had not been easy on the boy and Dean knew he was acting strangely.

"Yeah," he said. "It's fine, Jesse. I can take care of myself. You just make sure they have some apple tarts ready for me at breakfast."

The page nodded quickly and ducked back through the door, leaving Dean by himself in the empty apartments. All the Wizards had left already, spread across the kingdom to find and educate those who found themselves suddenly with power in their veins. Raphael was the only one to remain, a handy excuse when dealing with the nobles, but he was still in the Great Hall when Dean had excused himself.

Dean dismissed the lone serving girl watching over Cas when he entered his bedchamber and he took her seat on the chair beside the bed. He took Castiel's hand in his, sighing at the warm skin and steady pulse under his fingers.

"It's a mess out here," he said as he threaded his free hand through Cas' hair, raking it back from his forehead. "Half of the old windbags are running scared and the other half is scheming. It figures that the only ones with any daring are using it against us. I fielded seven requests for Anna's hand in marriage and nine for Raphael, as if I had any say in it."

He could almost hear Cas' reproachful voice. iOf course you have a say in it, but that doesn't mean you have to use it./i

Dean snorted. "Told them all that the final decision belongs to Michael, of course he's up north and probably will be for another two weeks at the least. No one wants to mess with the Head Wizard now that the magic's back in order. I think that's the only reason we haven't seen war break out." Dean's head dropped lower and lower as he talked, moving closes to Castiel's warmth. "Your father hasn't broken from our house yet, but I hear he was furious when he found out. I didn't even get to see him before he left. John was the one who talked with him which was probably a huge mistake."

He leaned forward until his forehead was resting on Castiel's shoulder and his words were whispered directly in his ear. All the calm and composure he'd managed to maintain all day fled from him as he clung to the Wizard. "I may have damned us all, Cas. A raven came from the southern border. One of the outposts near Dragon's Pass caught sight of a strange green cloud floating over Hellsmouth. We don't know if its weather magic, mage fire, or just an illusion. I've kept it secret from everyone but Raph. I'm terrified that we're sitting in a pile of dry leaves and a single spark is all it'll take to set it ablaze."

Cas didn't move, didn't answer.

"I don't want to do this alone," Dean said quietly, pleading as he lifted his head to look at the Wizard's face. "Don't make me do this alone." With each inhale, he expected Cas to open his eyes, but then the air would leave his lungs again and there'd be no change. This was no better than talking to himself. He was no better than Amanites praying to their painted stones.

Dean sat back in disgust, clenching his left hand over his own knee, but couldn't quite make himself let go of Castiel's hand. The absurdity of the situation struck him. He had spent eight years pretending to talk to Cas, lying in his bed before he'd fallen asleep, but now that Cas was here in front of him it felt shameful. Anna had said a few hours, and it had been half a day. It wouldn't be long now. Dean could wait.

He moved the chair so its back was against the wall and he could prop his legs up on the pallet while keeping hold of Castiel's hand. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but Dean had spent nights crammed in a cave with twenty knights while on the march. A hard back was nothing compared to a rock in his gut.

Falling asleep was an ordeal. He started awake every time someone outside shouted or laughed or when his own leg rustled the bed sheets. After the fifth or sixth time, he heard Raphael's muffled voice float in through the door to check if there'd been any change. There wasn't. Dean sighed and brushed a hand through Cas hair, smoothing it down.

"I need you to come back to me," he mumbled, and after a moments hesitation, bent down to place a drowsy kiss against Cas' forehead. "Please." Soon after, he managed to drift off into a fitful sleep.

When he woke, the sky was dark out, and the kitchen fires had yet to be lit. He settled back into the chair, determined to get another few hours of sleep, when he realized what had woken him. Cas wasn't lying straight out on his back. Instead, he had curled up onto his side facing Dean.

"Cas!" Dean called urgently. He grabbed Castiel by the shoulders and shook him. He was rough and rude, but he was too excited to wait. "Come on, Cas. Come back."

Cas squirmed against the sheets, stretching his arms out and almost hitting Dean in the face before his eyes blinked open. Dean surged forward, enveloping the Wizard in his arms and burying his face in his neck.

"Dean?" Cas laid a hand gently on Dean's back. "What happened? Why are you crying?"

Sure enough, when Dean blinked, he realized his eyes were wet. Still, he couldn't answer Cas' question because he didn't know himself.

Cas' voice grew urgent and worried. "Is Sam safe?" he asked as he let go of Dean. "Did you manage to catch Lucifer?" Cas placed a hand between them and pushed lightly, but Dean would have none of that now. He held on all the more tightly.

"Sam's fine, Cas. Lucifer's in the dungeon." Dean meant to say more. He had apologies and thanks and explanations lined up in a row, but they shrank in importance in the face of the fact that Sam was fine. That chapter of their lives was closed forever. He pulled back, fully aware of the dopey grin that had taken over his face. Cas looked at him with groggy bewilderment.

It was over, but there was one thing Dean still had to fix. "Cas," he said, toning down his smile into something softer. He took the Wizard's face in his hands. "I thought a lot about this."

"About what?" Cas didn't move his face or drop his gaze even though he looked utterly confused.

"You."

"Me?" If anything, Cas' confusion seemed to grow stronger.

"And me." Dean gulped and hurried on before Cas could ask again. "I see you once a year and I still think of you as my best friend."

The frown on Cas' face softened a little, but didn't go away.

"Everyone else I forget after a week unless I need something from them, but I can never get you out of my head."

Cas' eyes dropped away and his shoulders seemed to slump under Dean's hands. "You needed me to help Sam."

"That's not what I mean," Dean sighed. In negotiations he always knew what he wanted and what the other party wanted in turn, but here he felt adrift. He knew what he wanted, but he didn't know what Castiel thought. He could only hope that they wanted the same thing. "Cas, I don't need anything from you. I just need you. Not to help Sam. I need you for everything."

The words felt clumsy on his tongue, but Cas' eyes cleared and he gazed at Dean with wonder, like he understood the meaning that was muddled by need to speak them out loud. "You need me," Cas said, and it wasn't a question this time. He laid a hand on Dean's cheek and Dean leaned into his palm. When Cas leaned forward, Dean was sure that he was going to kiss him, but instead, Cas stopped with their foreheads touching. This close, Dean couldn't focus on his eyes, so he closed his instead, listening to Cas' breath, breathing in his scent of cotton and sweat.

"Dean, I've loved you since I knew what it meant to love someone as more than a friend or family. I never had the chance to love anyone else and I never had the chance to do anything but love you."

Dean's heart sank. He took Cas' hand in his, gripping so tight that Castiel winced. "That's fine. If you need time or space, you can have it and―"

"No," Cas shushed him. "I don't need that, but I have waited a very long time to hear you say that, so I want you to be sure."

Dean recognized the look on his face. Cas was nervous even though he had absolutely no reason to be. "I am, Cas. I mean," Dean bit his lip. "I broke the Geas to save your life."

Cas reeled back. The expression of shock would have been funny if it weren't followed immediately by a look of fury. "You broke the Geas? You should have told me that first," Cas said seriously.

Dean shot him an incredulous look. "For almost two years you kept your little secret from me! I didn't find out until you were lying almost dead on a table in the Great Hall! I had to hear about it from Gabriel. I swear, Cas, if you ever do something like that again, I'm going to―"

"Do something completely impetuous like break the Geas?" Cas shot back. He flung his sheets back, right into Dean's lap, and swung his legs off the side of the bed.

"Hey, wait!" Dean said, trying to stop him, but Cas was stubborn and mad. The Wizard stood for only a moment before his knees gave out underneath him, sending him falling sideways. Dean was prepared for it, of course, and caught Cas easily before he could even stumble.

"Careful," he admonished, hauling Cas more securely against him. "You've been bedridden for nearly two weeks now. Your muscles are weak; it'll take time for you to recover your strength."

Cas glared at his own legs like they had betrayed him. Then he turned his formidable glare on Dean. "What's happening out there? You must tell me everything."

Dean couldn't help it. Cas was standing in his rumpled gown using Dean as a full-body crutch and still thought it was his job to save the kingdom. He closed the inches between them and caught Cas' lips against his own. He half-expected Cas to shy away and continue admonishing him on his choices in running the kingdom, but he didn't. He stilled for a moment before he started kissing back. When Dean licked along Cas' bottom lip, his mouth opened easily and the kiss deepened into something fully serious, all humor gone from the situation. And when Cas moaned, rough and throaty, Dean could only think of getting underneath that sleeping gown. He took a step back, expecting Cas to follow, but instead, Cas slid halfway down him with an undignified yelp, clinging with both hands to Dean's belt as his legs splayed out beneath him.

Dean gaped for a moment, mourning the loss of Cas' body heat against him before he burst out laughing at the sight. Cas' grumpy face returned in full force as Dean hauled him back onto the bed.

"I think any strenuous activity will have to wait until you've recovered," Dean teased.

"I believe I can handle a number of activities while lying down," Cas said, shooting Dean a hungry look that he found worked far too well for his own good.

It took all of his willpower to unhook Cas' hands from his belt. "Impatient, are we?"

"Dean, I have spent the past thirteen years sequestered with my father, my brother, my sister, your mother, and Sam."

"Troll's blood," Dean breathed out. Of course Cas was impatient. He had no warm company but his own hand for the most heated eight years of his life. All good sense flew out the open window and Dean surged forward, pressing Cas down into the mattress with his body as he pressed kisses to his lips, his nose, his jaw. Cas was too thin under his gown, all bone and muscle, pared down by two weeks of near starvation.

That would have been enough to stop Dean, but he was given no other option when a rapid knock came at the door.

"What?" Dean called out breathlessly. Cas was panting and blushing furiously beneath him.

"Dean?" Raphael's voice floated through the solid oak. Sometime while he was distracted, the sun had risen over the horizon and the sounds of early morning castle life had started in the courtyard below. Dean cursed and got off the bed, pulling to straighten his clothing before he reached the door

"Is he awake?" Raphael asked anxiously when Dean opened the door.

"I am," Castiel answered hoarsely from the bed. Dean stepped aside quickly as Raphael rushed through the door.

"How are you feeling?" Raphael asked anxiously as he reached his brother's side. The acting Court Wizard was a blur of efficiency as he lifted Cas' eyelids and checked his pulse.

"I'm a little tired," Cas admitted.

"You feel a little warm," Raphael said with a worried frown.

The blush returned full-force to Castiel's face even though his expression didn't betray an ounce of embarrassment.

"I'll go get someone to send up some food," Dean said quickly before Raphael could begin to suspect anything. It wasn't that Dean wished to keep this a secret from him, or that he thought Castiel would wish to do so, he just wasn't ready to talk about it with Castiel's brother, of all people. Dean ran down to the first landing that held the servant's quarters and roused one of the girls to go to the kitchen and bring back some bread and cheese and cider.

When he returned upstairs, Raphael had finished his examination, and Cas was bundled up under the blankets looking thoroughly disgruntled.

"I have to go inform my father and Anna and Gabriel," Raphael said briskly. "You need to let Castiel get some rest."

"I have been resting for two weeks," Castiel said with an exasperated sigh.

"Yes, with no food, no water, and nothing but magic to sustain you," Raphael replied calmly to his brother before turning back to Dean. "If you don't think you can let him be, I will have Meg come and babysit the two of you."

Dean put on his most solemn of courtly faces until Raphael left the room. He glanced at Cas, and the two of them burst out laughing, deep full-bodied guffaws that shook them from head to toe until Cas was bright-eyed and flushed against his pillow. It had been so long since they'd been this carefree together and it felt amazing. Dean leaned forward and left a quick peck on Cas' lips. One little kiss couldn't hurt.

Cas hummed happily as they parted. "My brother is very perceptive," he remarked breathlessly.

"Luckily for us, he's also rather discreet. The last thing we need is more gossip flying around this castle."

"More gossip?" Cas asked with a raised eyebrow.

Dean sighed and sat down heavily in his chair. "It's far too soon to have any real news, but there are already rumors of powerful mage factions starting an uprising. The location and the ringleaders differ every time the story is told and nobody is foolish enough to believe it's true, but it's enough to stir trouble among the nobles."

Cas nodded and leaned back into his pillow. "Perhaps what you need is a distraction, something good for them to focus on, instead of the bad."

"That's why I staged a tournament." Dean ran a hand through his hair.

"Tournaments are too familiar. Magic is new and exciting. You need to direct that more towards awe than terror."

Castiel was right. No matter how large the pot for the tournament, it could not compete with the whisperings of magic in the air. He needed something extravagant. "The Narrow Strait!" he said triumphantly.

"An entire kingdom of Wizards couldn't close the Narrow Strait," Cas said wryly.

"No, but we could bridge it. Right now you either half to sail from Thousand Port to Roc's Beacon or climb down one cliff face, ford the river, and up the other side." Ironically, the Narrow Strait was too wide to build a bridge, but with enough mages, they could mold the rock itself to cross the gap.

Dean waited tentatively as Cas thought it over. "Yes, I believe that can be done. You should talk with Anna about it first."

"Anna isn't here right now," Dean said. "And I don't have time to wait for a reply."

"Then you should start it as a rumor. If Anna confirms, you can give credence to it. If she doesn't, it can fade away like the talk of a rebellion."

"Yes," Dean agreed with a nod of his head. He glanced down at Cas' frowning face and smiled. They had always worked well together, and now he would have that all year round.

"Dean?" Cas asked, cocking his head against the pillow. Dean realized he'd been hovering and smiling for a while now, so he covered by leaning down and planting a short kiss on the corner of Cas' mouth. When the Wizard turned his head, trying to catch him straight on, Dean pulled away with a smirk.

"You heard your brother. And anyways. I have to go implement our brilliant plan. I'll have the girl from yesterday come up."

"I don't need someone to watch me sleep," Cas huffed.

"No, but I want someone here to make sure you are sleeping. You learned your delinquency from me, remember?"

"You were the delinquent, Dean. I was never infected," Cas protested.

"That was before you started kissing me," Dean said with a grin and he rose to leave.

"Dean," Cas called softly. Dean turned back around and Cas was looking at him with a soft, adoring smile that melted his heart. "I just― thank you, for saving me."

"Of course, Cas," Dean said, as if it hadn't taken him an entire day to make the decision. He stood there between the bed and the door for a good minute, just looking at Cas whose eyes were already drooping shut even as he struggled to keep his head propped up against his pillow.

A knock, barely audible through two solid doors, startled him back into motion.

"My lord?"

Dean could just make out the muffled words calling him back into the world where there were a dozen men and women looking to bury him, bed him, or break him. He would bear all of it though, to have these moments with Cas. He sincerely hoped that it was the right decision for the rest of the world, but that dimmed in comparison to having his best friend here with him.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, Cas," he promised, but Castiel was already asleep. It didn't matter. He knew that Cas would be here waiting.


	6. Epilogue

Epilogue

Age 61

With the Geas broken, Castiel no longer owed Dean an act of magic, but the prince had a greater wish that the Wizard was eager to fulfill: to remain with him until the end of days. Here now ends the tale of the breaking of the Geas, but not of the entire story.

You all know of the Lightning War and the Fall of Harvelle and the coronation of our King, but no one speaks of the other side of the coin. It started with a boy who was unhappy with the state of the kingdom and he set out to change what he could. His plan required patience and planning and perseverance, and many see him as the villain of this story, but without him, the Geas stone would still stand today. The ending of his story goes like this.

Lucifer escaped his cell the day before his execution. No one saw him leave. He was simply there one moment and gone the next. There were rumors that Michael had let him go, that he couldn't bear to see Lucifer die like a common criminal, just as he'd never been able to bring himself to kill his brother.

The search for the fugitive was cursory. No one expected to simply find a Wizard who could travel hundreds of leagues at a moment's notice, and Lucifer did not show his face again for years. The next time he appeared was during the Lightning War. He fought for neither side, but a Wizard was sighted several times on the battlefields once the fighting was over. After that, he became somewhat of a legend, a travelling mage who granted wishes, but whether or not the outcome was what you wanted was always uncertain.

There were hundreds of theories about what happened to him. Some say he threw himself into the depths of Mage Peak. Others say he died fighting the ice dragons. Some say he's still alive, meditating in the wilderness. But what really happened was that he grew old and he went home. My grandfather, Michael, told me the story himself. Fifteen years ago, when he stepped down as High Wizard, succeeded by my uncle, Raphael, he returned to his family home atop Mage Peak, which had remained empty since his family moved to the capital. When he arrived with only a small retinue of servants, they found the manor not as barren as they expected. There was a fire going in the hearth in the great hall, and the shutters had been opened on the first floor. The kitchen was stocked with fresh root vegetables and a few chickens even ran around the yard.

They were wary, of course, expecting intruders who had taken advantage of an empty home, but it was not a stranger that greeted them. Michael found his brother lying on the bed in his childhood rooms. Though he was the older sibling, Michael was in far better health. Lucifer was thin and pale, almost skeletal. His breaths wheezed and his eyes were dark circles sunk into his head. He was dying.

Michael sat down on the edge of the bed and looked his brother in the eye.

"Hello Lucifer," he said wearily, for he was old and had long outgrown the anger of his youth.

"Michael," Lucifer wheezed. "Do you see now what I have done?"

Michael nodded. "I do."

"And was it not good?"

At this, Michael didn't answer. He didn't have words that could fully encompass all the consequences of his brother's actions.

"I don't blame you, but I don't thank you either," he said simply. "But I am glad to see you one last time." Lucifer nodded. They both knew that he was not long for this earth.

Lucifer died two days later, and Michael stayed on the mountain for the remainder of his days. Today, on the fortieth anniversary of the breaking of the Geas, we also gather to mourn my grandfather. Michael Argenet was both High Wizard and Royal Wizard through one of the most tumultuous times in the history of the magefolk. And here today we gather to grant unto him the name of Loyal, for standing by the idea behind the Geas even after it had broken: striving for peace amongst all the peoples.


End file.
